December 15, 2007
Contents:
- EDITORIAL: Is it Really Almost 2008?
- FEATURE: Introduction to Integrative Energy Healing
- UPDATE: Start a Petition to Ban BGH
- UPDATE: Open Call for Nominations to the Expert Advisory Committee on Natural Health Products
- UPDATE: Save the Whales
- UPDATE: More Reasons to Plant Trees
__________
EDITORIAL: Is it Really Almost 2008?
Dear HANS Members and Friends,
It's so hard to believe this will be our last e-News in 2007. Where have the past 20-plus years of my life as executive director of HANS gone?
Actually, the answer is easy, now that I think about it. Those years have gone into one of the biggest passions in my life: promoting a key tenet that HANS stands for - freedom of consumer choice in health care.
To some, that choice may mean orthodox medicine. To others, orthomolecular medicine better fits the bill. While HANS's constitution as a society speaks to our role in educating about preventive medicine and natural therapeutics, we recognize the individual's right to choose. Interestingly, more often than not these days, people are leaning towards a combination of two worlds of medicine - alternative and conventional - that were once quite far apart.
I guess "integrative" truly is the newest catchword. What integration in medicine means to HANS is yet another choice to respect. So, in this e-News, we offer information to consider on a relatively new therapeutic modality that could be incorporated into an integrative medical model. New HANS Professional Member Marija Djordjevic introduces us to an up and coming form of energy medicine recognized by the US
National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.
We're also including an important Canadian petition that supports a future federal Bill to ban bovine growth hormone, a toxic hormone fed to cows (in other countries) to artificially boost milk production. If you could help, that'd be great.
Meanwhile, a long-time HANS member is looking for a tenant/s for a 15-acre property in northeast Coquitlam, BC. Agricultural experience would be helpful. Phone Lewis Dahlby at 604-833-0095.
Warm regards,
Lorna
Founding Member and Executive Director
__________
FEATURE: Introduction to Integrative Energy Healing
by Marija Djordjevic, Certified Integrative Energy Healing PractitionerMany people say they feel "empty" and "half alive", get anxious and worried in the absence of any apparent reason or feel "trapped", "tied down" or "suffocated" in relationships or at work and have a hard time maintaining intimacy. We often close our hearts in order to not feel pain - either from the pain we are afraid we are about to receive, or the pain already there. If we keep stuffing trauma and pain into the subconscious, eventually we can only feel pain when we seek heart’s guidance, so we cease to go there.
Headaches, high blood pressure, bronchitis, asthma, intestinal distress, addiction, allergies, and other chronic problems are results of out of the balance complex patterns of human energy fields. Balancing the human energy field can assist the body in healing itself.
Integrative Energy Healing (IEH) is a healing modality classified by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine as a biofield energy therapy.
The goal of IEH treatment is to increase harmony and coherence in the energy field, thereby enhancing the multidimensional physical, emotional, mental and spiritual process involved in healing in order to awaken the body's innate healing potential. IEH is healing science designed to complement conventional approaches to health care.
An IEH practitioner teaches awareness techniques designed to sustain health and deepen healing connection. Individuals facing major health challenges, including chronic conditions, can benefit from a personalized program of deep, transformative healing.
Recent advances in psychology, biology and neurology have broadened knowledge so that information from a variety of fields is being integrated into a single framework which allows us to understand human beings, their motives, their unconscious and how their history affects them. Many patients find that after reliving traumas which occurred early in their life, their anxiety and depression diminish, their relationships improve, they no longer feel the urge to drink or use drugs and they discover their humanity and the power for transformation and choice.
When bioelectromagnetic energy field from the heart is in balance we have healthy energy, feel friendly, are concerned for others, have a sense of belonging, have a good sense of humour and radiate warmth and compassion.
IEH is a safe, gentle healing approach suitable for both adults and children.
What takes place during IEH treatment session?
Treatments last approximately 45 to 60 minutes. The client's medical history and presenting issue is explored during first 15 minutes at the first appointment.
An individual practitioner or a treatment team may offer IEH treatment session.
Sessions typically take place with the client lying on a massage table, although clients may also sit in a chair or wheelchair. After discussing a client goal for the session, the practitioner places his/her hands directly above the client's body and moves through the Human Energy Field in order to identify areas of energetic imbalance. Based upon this energy assessment, the practitioner uses treatment techniques to shift the field into a more balance state.
Client's feedback guides the session. Individuals have reported sensations of heat, cold, tingling, vibration, current and muscle release as they become sensitive to the movement of energy within the body. The practitioner ends the session by holding the client's feet until the client feels grounded and present.
Treatments are offered in a safe, respectful, healing environment. The client may stop the treatment or ask questions at any time.
A person does not have to be unwell in order to feel the benefits of IEH sessions. Treatments also promote high-level wellness.
Marija Djordjevic, cIEHp, BSc, holds certification in Integrative Energy Healing / IEH (3 year program from Langara College) in addition to the university degree as an Electrical Engineer. These two very different, yet complementary aspects of knowledge and training, allow her a solid, grounded foundation for exploring healing on an energetic level. She works with people of all ages, and takes special interest in working with children and youth.
In her research, she is pushing the boundaries of science, which aims to unravel the mysteries behind energy healing. She has hundreds of treatments behind her: spinal cord injury chronic stress, ADD, ADHD, Asperger’s syndrome, addiction and behaviour problems She also has certification in Healing Touch I, Reflective Dialog. Phone: 604-771-7414 e-mail: marija@harmonywellness.ca web: harmonywellness.ca
Marija is offering gift certificates for upcoming holiday season at a special discount price until December 31st.
__________
UPDATE: Start a Petition to Ban BGH
by Helke FerrieThe petition below was initiated by Dr. Shiv Chopra. This former Health Canada scientist's efforts in the 1990s stopped bovine growth hormone (BGH), a toxic chemical designed to artificially boost milk production in cows, from entering Canada's food chain in 1999.
BGH is known as a potent cancer-causing substance in humans, and the same is true for the antibiotics used in food-producing animals. They also harm human hormone production and initiate chronic diseases. Feeding slaughterhouse waste to herbivores (i.e. feeding cows to cows and pigs), which is banned in the European Union, is the primary cause of mad cow disease.
Federal MP Paul Dewar (NDP) will bring this petition, collected all over the country simultaneously, to Parliament in Ottawa in March 2008 as a bill which, if passed, would ban all these substances and practices in Canada.
Should the present Conservative (Harper) government fall before March 2008, MP Dewar's bill would die on the order papers, but if a large number of people have been found to support of this measure, not only could this bill then be successfully re-introduced, but leading non-governmental organizations would then also be able to take this petition forward and make it the centre of a national campaign to stop carcinogens from being allowed in our food supply.
Please copy/paste the petition below into a fresh document and do your best to get as many signatures as you can. Then return the signed sheet packages to me by the end of February 2008, after which I'll forward the collection to MP Dewar.
My address is 1997 Beechgrove Road, Caledon, ON, L7K 0N3.
It is vitally important that you make sure that each sheet for the signatures has at the top the first sentence of the petition. Otherwise, it is legally not guaranteed that the signatures were collected for that specific petition.
If you have any questions, feel free to call me. Leave a message as to when to call you back, should you get my voicemail: 519-927-1049.
[copy/paste starting here]
PETITION TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, CANADA
November 2007
Whereas substances such as hormones, antibiotics, rendered slaughter wastes, genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and pesticides, are currently allowed to be utilized in food production by the Canadian Government;
Whereas the use of these materials in food production is known to have led to a concomitant rise in cancer, antimicrobial resistance and disorders, such as immunological, hormonal and reproductive defects, and death in people:
Whereas the use of these materials in food production causes damage to the general health and wellbeing of the Canadian public;
Whereas the use of these materials in food production is harming the right to earn a reasonable livelihood among the farming communities of Canada;
Whereas the use of these substances in food production causes damage to a wider public interest of Canada;
Whereas the people of Canada have been objecting to the use of these substances in food production;
Whereas the people of Canada have the right to eat and nourish their families without the use of any such substances in food production:
Therefore, your petitioners call on the Government of Canada to prohibit the use of hormones, antibiotics, rendered slaughterhouse waste, genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and pesticides in the production of food.
Name Printed Address and Postal Code Signature
[end copy/paste of petition here]
__________
UPDATE: Open Call for Nominations to the Expert Advisory Committee on Natural Health Products
Health Canada's Natural Health Products Directorate (NHPD) is seeking nominations for consideration to replace one of its members on the Expert Advisory Committee (EAC). Nominations should be sent to the NHPD by mail or priority courier post-marked by Friday, January 11, 2008. Nominations post-marked after this date will not be considered.
For the purposes of this open call, the NHPD is seeking candidates with knowledge and expertise in conventional medicine.
Further information is available online at:
http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/dhp-mps/prodnatur/activit/com...
The Natural Health Products Directorate
Health Canada
__________
UPDATE: Save the Whales
by Sandra TonnThere was a time when "Saving the Whales" meant saving them from being killed for profit. Today, the largest orca whale population near Vancouver Island needs saving from toxic oil from government inaction.
In August 2007, a barge accident at the Robson Bight Ecological Reserve resulted in a tanker carrying 10,000 litres of oil to sink. Approximately 1,000 litres of oil was spilled. Environmentalists fear that the fuel that was not spilled will leak from the tanker over the span of decades, continually polluting the waters of the ecological reserve and harming the whales and other sea life in the area. The government’s Transport Safety Board has not responded to calls for an underwater investigation.
A private investigation by environmentalists will require $35,000 of funding. If you would like to donate to the Save Robson Bight Fund, you can do so through the
Greenpeace website.
__________
UPDATE: More Reasons to Plant Trees
by Sandra TonnTrees are already super stars when it comes to cleaning our polluted air, but news from the Ontario Agricultural College at Guelph University gives us even more reason to plant trees. Guelph research farmers are proving that planting trees between crops improves the crop yield, ecology and environment.
Tree-crop intercropping is a traditional farming practice in China, long known to benefit crops. On the Guelph farms, rows of trees are planted 12.5 to 15 metres apart in the experiment crops and the then compared to their regular crops. Results show that the intercropping allows double yields in a drought year in addition to consistently better soil, more earthworms, more birds and insects, less nitrogen runoff, and a much higher caption of carbon dioxide.
According to the
Toronto Star, if Canadian farmers practiced intercropping on 455,000 square kilometers of the marginal or degraded land currently being farmed, we could reduce our country's carbon dioxide emissions by more than 18 percent, which is very close to our Kyoto Accord commitment.