If only all the talking could justify one’s true self! Add to it the noise of traffic, background music, TV channels and innumerable sound producing gadgets. So much noise in the world! And what a clamorous place to subsist! While some of you might agree, most would defend on the need for sound. Specifically most would vouch for the need for music.

Accustomed to the din, we would rather “get on” to something rather than confronting silence. Then we become prone to activization. Derisive as it may sound, if we cannot shake hands with silence, it is because we are afraid. Frightened of being alone; more so, having a real meeting with our own self. And we keep shirking and postponing this date. Betraying, deserting. Whom??

Contrary to a general belief, even the most ornate of language fails in proximity of silence. The most important and overwhelming moments of life are devoid of words. Be it Love, joy, grief, shocker, rage or hope. Because that is when we actually meet ourselves. Words fail, rather there is a moment of transcendence when there remains no need whatsoever. How blissful must the silence be then? Ghalib rightly says, speaking of love:

nuktaacheen hai gham-e-dil usko sunaaye na bane
kya bane baat jahaaN baat banaaye na bane

(My grief-stricken heart is too critical, incapable of speaking out to her, when need be
How can things move further, where there is a loss of words?)

No matter how candid and truthful we are in our relations with others, the social self simply implies a front, by implication an element of self-deception. Always a cover, even if it is to a small degree. It is a fact. And those seeking true peace need to come out of this façade of self-reassurance. And the first step to that would be, learning to live with ourselves in our own personal loneliness and silence.

It is not to say that all contact with the outside world should be blocked, but just unblock the silent messages coming from within. Believe me, it is worth it; overwhelming.

Silently yours,
Manjit

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A Viennese doctor named Ignace Semmelweis was treated as an heretic for suggesting that obstetricians wash their hands between the autopsy room and the delivery room when women were dying like flies from puerperal fever, a childbirth infection caused of course by humours in the air.

Today, in our sophisticated techno-scientific era, “everyone knows” that depression is caused by “a chemical imbalance in the brain” and anyone who doesn’t know this is very ill-informed. Everyone also knows that this chemical imbalance is a genetically inherited organic illness which, in this case, needs to be treated with “medicine”, just like diabetes and epilepsy.

To formulate human suffering as a biological illness is enormously appealing to people because it grants us instant relief from feelings of guilt and helplessness, from fear of accountability in ourselves and others and especially from the unknown. Biological psychiatrists tell us that neurotransmitter depletion in certain parts of the brain (the famous “chemical imbalance”) can be demonstrated in the depressed human being and that the medications which so successfully relieve the debilitating effects of clinical depression can be shown to restore normal neurotransmitter levels in humans. It is, of course, very tempting to draw a causal relationship between these two apparent findings. This is fair enough.

In my opinion, the trouble starts when an intentional assumption is then added. The neurochemical changes are first anointed as the primary cause of the depression; then they have conferred upon them a genetic status. Now we have a simple genetic illness which causes depression in perfectly normal people, for no reason other than mechanics. The depression itself is deemed to be meaningless.

It has always seemed strange to me that we invoke genetics and neurochemistry as the exclusive fundamental cause of psychiatric disorders when their explanation is so often available to the naked eye of a reasonably intelligent and sensitive observer. We are so enraptured by the seemingly magical powers of science that we have had to start to refer to something called “scientism” to account for its excesses, i.e. materialistic reductionism, concrete thinking and a doctrinaire loss of the ability to think about intangibles like emotions and the drama of the human psyche. The term “scientific” has come to mean that which can be weighed and measured, only.

Here’s the rub. What if depression, anxiety and other psychiatric disorders (eating disorders, post-partum disorders, etc.) are meaningful expressions of the normal function of the human mind in a perfectly normal brain? What if the mind causes the “chemical imbalance” and not a gene? What if brain disorder is the expression of a distressed psyche rooted in human experience and buffeted by overwhelming life events which go much deeper and earlier than even intimate social and interpersonal problems?

Perhaps the deepest and most powerful influences we experience result from the prolonged exposure to the psyches of those who raised us—not even so much of what they said and did, but how they actually were emotionally and psychologically, consciously and unconsciously. There is no underestimating the power and dimensions of the adult influences that an unsuspecting child deals with every day in the silence of the mind. When these influences are sufficiently pathological, the child doesn’t stand a chance. Then we have a mind that is so chronically overwhelmed with turmoil that it is incapable of mastering alone that, as it seems to me, brain becomes exhausted and collapses.

Do not call a brain genetically vulnerable until you know the size of its psychological burden.

To what does all this fundamentally point? It is that people need and deserve a medical professional which heals and in so doing promotes health and personal growth. Human experience is fraught with pain and suffering and the older we are the better we know this. Where the meaning of experience can be found, there is a light of recognition which is in itself healing.

A patient of mine recently taught me that, though it may hurt, the truth heals and it known to be true because it heals. When the suffering of a human being is reduced to a module of brain illness, there is no hope of reaping such a harvest. “You have an illness, Sir. It is incurable. Take these pills for the rest of your life. And whatever you do don’t talk to me about your problems!”

When we find the truth, it has the ring of truth and it has the effect of making us more conscious. Through being more conscious we have something we can fairly call well-being and sense of self. True happiness however is, in my opinion, more of a spiritual matter than a psychological one.

You are only too old to learn when you are dead…except, of course, for those who are truly mentally or emotionally disabled. But age itself is not a barrier to insight or psychotherapy. However helpful medications are, and they are often very effective, they are a symptomatic remedy. They do not, in my opinion, address real causes. The often overt message that medications are themselves a sufficient response to the challenge of psychiatric disability disavows the purpose of the disorder they are trying to serve—that is, to force us to attend to what we are avoiding and, through that, to make us more conscious.

Originally published in Stride Magazine, December 2005.

Dr. Howard Taynen graduated from Queen’s University Medicine in 1973 and continued his education in psychiatry at McMaster University and was qualified in 1981. He has been in fulltime private practice of psychiatry and psychotherapy since 1984. He is presently working part-time at Joseph Brant Memorial Hospital in Burlington, Ontario as a consultant to outpatient psychiatry.

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It's part of what communications strategists call "framing" - the way they present messages to the public to make them more palatable. And it's become a big part of how the new Conservative government plans to win you over.

Think tax relief, not tax cuts. Think climate change, not global warming. Think responsible development, not sustainable development. These words and phases are not casual alterations. They are deliberate, tested and designed to sway public opinion. And they work.

Recently, Prime Minister Harper invited American pollster and political strategist Frank Luntz for a visit. It was a telling move, given Mr. Luntz's impact on discourse in the United States. In fact, Mr. Luntz's efforts have been credited in part for President Bush's re-election. While Democratic candidate John Kerry should have had a field day with Mr. Bush's poor economic, environmental and military leadership records, Kerry blathered on in the language of specialists, leaving the public cold. Meanwhile, George W. talked the plain language of the people, using Mr. Luntz's carefully crafted words and phrases, and repeating them over and over until they became accepted as the norm.

Like Canada's Conservatives, the Republicans were perceived as uninterested, even hostile, to environmental conservation. Mr. Luntz helped reverse that perception by changing the language and the way Republicans talked about the environment. These changes made it seem as though Republicans were indeed concerned about the environment and were presenting solutions that protected nature, even though their policies often did the exact opposite. Programs to increase logging became "healthy forests" projects. Relaxed air pollution rules became "clear skies" initiatives.

Under Mr. Luntz's tutelage, it comes as no surprise now in Canada to be hearing talk by the Conservatives of a "clean air act" and a "made in Canada" plan instead of the Kyoto Protocol. This last phrase, used to describe the Conservative's upcoming and yet unseen climate change plan, is a classic piece of spin. The name implies that whatever came before it was made outside of Canada and is therefore foreign and scary.

In fact, the previous government's plan - which Mr. Harper has systematically eliminated, including such things as scrapping the Energuide program, which provided rebates for homeowners to make their homes more energy efficient (thereby saving money and reducing emissions) - was also made in Canada. And Kyoto itself contains a wide variety of measures demanded by Canada to make it easier for us to meet our targets and reduce global warming.
Then again, you won't hear Mr. Harper talking about global warming in any case. When he mentions the issue, which is rarely, he sticks to "climate change" - the specialist's term. Why? Simple, because it isn't scary. It takes the disturbing idea of an entire planet heating up and turns it into something that sounds more like a change of seasons.
Is Mr. Harper lying by using these terms? No, but he's playing on the fact that Canadians don't have the time to figure out what they mean. The words sound good. They sound like something positive. After all, who doesn't want to be responsible and clean? Who doesn't want something that's been made in Canada?

Mr. Harper is banking on the public not figuring out what these things really mean until after the next election - where the possibility of a majority government looms tantalizingly within reach. So close, in fact, that the prime minister must be feeling like - well, I don't know the word, but I'm sure Mr. Luntz will help him make one up.

Originally published on May 26, 2006.

Dr. David Takayoshi Suzuki is distinguished Canadian geneticist who has attained prominence as a science broadcaster and an environmental activist. He is also a co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation.

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The history of soap making was introduced to us by Europeans. A few years ago, hygiene was not as highly regarded as it is today.

History of Soap Making and the American Indian
Indians had little need for soap. Their clothing, like the Eskimo, was made of animal hides and couldn’t be washed. Simply brushed off or replaced when they became worn. Pressured by pioneers, the Indians wouldn’t take up the European dress because “their woman cannot wash them when they become soiled… therefore they had rather go naked then be lousy.” Actually the reverse occurred and many settlers adopted Indian dress when their European clothes expired.

The history of soap making in several pioneer recollections includes the story of a young girl who undertook to clean her one and only garment made of deerskin. She dipped it into a tub of lye-water, only to see it shrivel before her eyes, forcing her to take tearful refuge in her blankets.

Although Canadian Indians didn’t use soap, bathing was more than for hygiene. With fasting and celibacy, it was a body and soul cleansing experience for them. It prepared the Indians for communion with supernatural beings. It was also used as a ritual before hunting, healing, and initiation. Young Indian babies were bathed frequently in cold water to toughen them. This insured only the fit survived by withstanding this endurance test.

The history of soap making also included using the Indian sweat bath which was surprising to the new Europeans. This ritual had disappeared in Europe before the discovery of America. It survived in Finland known as the sauna. Also common in Africa and the Pacific Islands, many believe it reached its peak in the new world.

Besides being a sanitary and religious method, the sweat bath, accompanied by herbs, was used for diseases. The fumes of wild horsemint or balsam needles scattered on the coals were inhaled for colds. As a relief to sore muscles and rheumatism, witch hazel twigs were steeped in water heated by hot rocks to produce the soothing steam.

As Indians were exposed to traders and settlers, they gradually adopted many of the white man’s habits, among them, soap. In the mid 1800s, among West Coast Indians, a piece of soap of a finger’s thickness was worth four marten pelts. Translated, this was a high price, since a blanket could be had for ten. A sliver of soap was often the coveted prize for schoolyard games in mission settlements.

History of Soap Making & Soap Factory
In the biography of William Duncan, a lay preacher, soap was an accessory to convert the natives of Fort Simpson on the Northwest Pacific Coast. This zealous Christian persuaded Indians to renounce their rich heritage and relocate in a European style village.

Gone were the medicine men, moccasins, potlatches and totems. The members of the village had to vow to be clean. The Indians renounced their spirit-gods and eagerly embraced the European way of life. Duncan encouraged his charges to plant garden plots and build frame houses. In the late 1800s, together with a forge, carpentry shop, sawmill, and brick kiln, he started a soap factory.

Christians and History of Soap Making
Christians viewed the body as a temporary vessel for the soul.
Concerning oneself with bodily functions was considered bad for the spirit. As time went on, fundamentalist sects warned the body was a source of evil. This caused an over concern with modesty. Even disrobing in private was sinful. Bathing was discouraged.

Romans and History of Soap Making
Romans, along with Jews and Greeks, were the opposite. They held the body in great regard, a gift from the gods. Cleanliness and sanitation began the outgrowth of public toilets and baths.

Archaeologists believe that Egypt’s Queen Nefertiti used facial masks of honey, milk, and flower pollen to cleanse her pores while in her bath went 80 herbs and fruits.

Originally published at www.articlefactory.com

About the Author
Rachael is owner of Making Homemade Soap, her dad is Randy Wilson.

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The metaphor is apt for Rushdie's own work. First, the clowning. News for the uninitiated: the author can be laugh-out-loud funny. Don't let the fatwa fool you — a punning, slapstick-y wit leavens even his most "serious" fiction. Meanwhile, the tightrope element. Thirty years and nine novels along, Rushdie remains a risk-taker, playing with forms and styles, restlessly evolving, surprising readers with each new book.

In September of 2002, Rushdie spent an hour at Powells.com reflecting on the arc of his career, from the early, attention-grabbing novels to the nonfiction collected in Step Across this Line. Three years later, he returned to talk about Shalimar the Clown.

Dave: Last time we talked, I think you'd already started Shalimar the Clown.

Salman Rushdie: I actually did start it long before I wrote Fury. I probably had the germ of it around the time I finished The Ground Beneath Her Feet, in '98 or '99, but I couldn't make it work.

I think the reason I couldn't is that I'd conceived it on too small a scale. You know that murder scene at the beginning? Originally, I had thought the book would stay in the present moment of that crime. After he gets captured, there would even be a long epistolary section where the daughter writes him letters, et cetera. I thought it would be like that, this intense threesome: Shalimar, India, and Max.

Maybe another writer could have made that work. I still think it wasn't a bad idea to do it that way, as a very taut, extreme close-up novel, sort of like an Ingmar Bergman movie. But it just stalled. And then along came the idea of Fury, which seemed much more ready to go.

Of course, you always have a feeling when you set a book aside that you'll never go back to it. What happened is that in the interim I came to understand very, very clearly what I'd misconceived: I couldn't do it with that narrow focus; in fact it would be unfair to the characters not to let them have their full story.

There's a moment when you realize that means the book is going to be much bigger, and therefore require much more work, including research — that it's going to take much longer to write, but if you don't do that it's not going to be any good.

At that point the canvas got much bigger and took in all this stuff that wasn't originally part of the design, like Nazi-occupied Strasbourg. Even the Kashmir material I had originally thought would be back-story; it would be alluded to rather than fully dramatized. Then I thought, No, you're being stupid because that's the heart of the story, and you can't write the book without its heart. So I went for that, too, and it became a huge part of the book.

Dave: One of the epigraphs is pulled from Shakespeare. The story mingles elements of drama, history, and comedy. They're all mixed in there.
Rushdie: Many, many years ago, when I was just starting out as a writer, I heard the British playwright Howard Brenton talk about Shakespeare. He said some things I've amplified in my mind, so I don't remember what was him and what's me, but the gist of it was that one of the great gifts of Shakespeare to writers in the English language was to show that a work of literature can be many things at once — it doesn't have to be just one thing.

An example I sometimes use: look at the sequence of opening scenes of Hamlet. The first scene is a ghost story. The second scene is intrigue at court. The third scene is a love story. The fourth scene is knockabout comedy. And the fifth scene is a ghost story again. What Shakespeare showed is that you could do all that. It's completely unlike the French classical tradition, which is much more purist. Shakespeare said, Mix it all up. You can have comedy, history, and tragedy all wrapped into one. And all you have to do to pull it off is be Shakespeare.

But it's a great liberation for writers of the English language to see that the greatest writer was free-form in that way. I've always liked that. A book doesn't have to be just a thriller, or just a comedy, or just a psychological novel. It can be all those things at once.

Dave: How old were you when you went to your first circus? What do you remember of it?

Rushdie: In Bombay, when I was growing up, circus was really big. It used to come all the time. As far back as I can remember we used to get taken to the circus a couple times a year. I loved it — and particularly tightrope walkers. I was always mesmerized by tightrope walkers, especially the ones who would clown on the tightrope, which is why I made Shalimar a tightrope clown. Clowning without a safety net, playing with the center of gravity as your trick, endlessly making the audience think you're going to fall but never falling, I thought was just magical.

I was in the south of France for a literary event earlier this year, in Toulouse. They had set up a high wire in the main square, this beautiful old main square of the town. And there was this guy, very, very high — a big high wire — and it was quite a windy night. Even though it was a steel wire, nevertheless there was great vibration in it, and this guy was doing astonishing things up there: he was lying down on it, stretching out and reading a newspaper more or less. I thought, That's my guy.

It's a great question actually because my interest in clowning on the tightrope goes back to when I was six or seven years old. I then did meet a group of traveling players in Kashmir who very generously took me to their village and showed me their life, but the tightrope player came from this other place.
Dave: It's not until halfway through the novel that you give the title character his own section. I wondered how that reflected your conception of the book.
Rushdie: The book is conceived as a five-act play, and each act has one of the four major characters at its heart; the first and the fifth act are both the same character.

Because the first image I had of the book was the murder and everything I learned about the characters flowed from that, I thought it was right to begin there, where it began in my imagination.

What's important in that first movement is to create the relationship between Max and his daughter. If you're going to kill him rather soon, you first have to make people care about him, and the fastest way I could think of to do that was to concentrate on the father-daughter relationship right at the beginning, this rather flawed relationship, but nevertheless a quite deep one. The first part of the book is about that, and then it exfoliates; it goes backwards. And yes, the interesting thing: the book is driven in a way by the women, even though Shalimar is the title character.

One way of describing the book is that it's about the process by which India finds out the story of her life. The novel in fact is the discovery or the exposition of the story of her life; by the end of the novel she knows that story. After all, her real mother's decision to leave Shalimar the clown on behalf of the American ambassador really is the engine of the plot.

The two women drive the story, so I wanted to go into them first. That's why Boonyi is at the heart of the second part of the book.

It's not until his heart gets broken that Shalimar the clown comes into his own. Until that point, he's very sweet, but Boonyi is more interesting. He became more interesting, for me, anyway, after she broke his heart. Then he moves into the center of the story.

Dave: Throughout the novel, you seemed to be having a lot of fun with voices. The Russian super comes to mind.

Rushdie: I'm very fond of her. I'm glad you brought her up.

Dave: "Marriage is what, car rental."

Rushdie: Exactly. "We'll pick you up."

Olga arrived with that voice. She could have taken over the novel, which isn't really about her, of course. I so enjoyed writing her stuff.

I think the novel does need that kind of comic leavening. A lot of it is tragic. I hope she's funny — she seems to go down a great treat with audiences; I find myself reading Olga quite a lot. But also, she's a woman who has become estranged from her daughters and is therefore in need of a daughter; and India is in need of a mother. They become, in a way, each other's surrogates, in that Los Angeles part of the novel. So Olga has that human, more poignant dimension to her, which I was very happy to find. It justified in my mind allowing her to be a significant character.

The opposite of Olga in the book are the Indian colonel and the iron mullah in Kashmir, who are also comic characters, but dark-comic instead of bright-comic.

Dave: What book is on your nightstand right now?

Rushdie: I've been reading this book by a young Nigerian writer called Uzodinma Iweala. I don't even know if it's published in the United States yet. He's ridiculously young, just out of Harvard. It's a book called Beasts of No Nation. It's set in an imaginary African country, which is a little bit Uganda, a little bit Nigeria, a little bit Rwanda. It's a book about horror, but he writes in this first-person, African patois, which gives it a lightness and wit, a buoyancy, which is very unusual considering what he's writing about.

It's one of those rare occasions when you see a first novel and you think, This guy is going to be very, very good. Very differently, I remember being shown seventy or eighty pages of the manuscript of White Teeth, before she'd even got an agent, and I thought, This girl's going to be gigantic. Now she is.

Dave: Have you read her new novel?

Rushdie: I have. I like Zadie's stuff.

I think what Zadie is good at — and she knows what she's good at — is light comedy. The book is fantastically vivacious, very intelligent light comedy. Sometimes people over-claim for her and I think mislead people about the kind of writer she is. I don't think she's E. M. Forster; she's actually closer to Evelyn Waugh. Even though the book is based on Howard's End, I think the actual note of the book is more of a Waugh-like comedy, rather than Forsterian stuff, which is rather darker.

Dave: Who's going to win the American League East?

Rushdie: Of course the Yankees are going to win it. They've just been pulling up there, and now they're ahead.

Dave: Did I mention earlier that I'm from Boston?

Rushdie:Well, bad luck. Once in eighty-six years is good!

Dave: I'm still high from last year. As much as I'm rooting and following every game, it doesn't matter the same way it did in the past.

Rushdie: Truthfully, it's going to come down to those last three games of the season; I'm sure it is. Whoever comes out on top in those. Because Cleveland is getting to be so scarily good. I don't think either the Yankees or the Red Sox can rely on the wild card. They've got to actually win.

Dave: Now, the all-important question, supplied by a friend of mine, actually: boxers or briefs?

Rushdie: Boxers, for preference, but I still have some old briefs lying around.

Originally Published in www.Powells.com

⁽⁰⁾

This collection is universal in appeal, from the general to the personal perspective, our place in a marginalized society and in the grand scheme of things, and our ongoing dialog with history from the perspective of our own experiences.

The poem is literally the sound of humanity, the voice of yearning and hope, restoring us to an increasingly alienating world, a private corner of the universe where we find comfort and expression. In the words of “the quintessential woman poet of the North,” Xuan Quynh:
“It’s the season in which nothing can hide.
The whole world is dressed in light.
The sea aqua, the white sails full.
And bitterness turns into poetry.” (Xuan Quynh, “Summer”)

Poet’s Choice is a collection of great poems in an intimate format, the author speaking to the landscape of poetry, the language of each selection and shared anecdotes, rendering each work uniquely accessible: Jorge Luis Borges’ “Nightingale”; Rabindranath Tagore’s “Final Poems”; Nellie Sachs’ “Butterfly”; Pablo Neruda’s “Body of a Woman” and “Walking Around,” to name but a few.

In their natural context, these poems are complex, universally appealing. Thoughtfully assembled, the poets speak the language of the world, past and present in an anthology that begs for a permanent place on a desk or bedside table, an island of personal exploration that expands the souls and heals the heart.

“And so
it has taken me
all of sixty years
to understand
that water is the finest drink,
and bread the most delicious food,
and that art is worthless
unless it plants
a measure of splendor in people’s hearts.” (Taha Muhammad Ali)
To absorb the depth of these poems is to appreciate the differences inherent in the world we inhabit, elevating the consciousness and reaching for the finer self, one with the universe in human experience and the source of hope.

Originally published on Curled Up With A Good Book at www.curledup.com. © Luan Gaines, 2006

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2. Angular
a) Tedious
b) Angled
c) Twisted
d) None of the above

3. Blubbery
a) Abounding in fat
b) A kind of sea animal
c) Both a & b
d) None of the above

4. Cocainism (path.)
a) A condition due to excessive use of cocaine
b) A medicine-refinement process
c) Breaking down cocaine
d) None of the above

5. Deference
a) Putting off
b) Difference
c) Respectful submission
d) Both a & b

6. Everbearing
a) Arrogant
b) Lazy
c) Continuously producing
d) Both a & b

7. Hashing (radio)
a) Hacking
b) Recylcing
c) Interference of signals
d) Both a & b

8. Kabuki
a) A Japanese drama
b) An animal
c) A Native Indian play
d) None of the above

9. Sabbath
a) Seventh day of the week
b) Related to religious holidays
c) A period of rest
d) Both a & c

10. Xerophytes
a) Plants adapted to grow in wet conditions
b) Plants adapted to grow in low-light conditions
c) Plants adapted to grow in dry conditions
d) None of the above

Answers
1. (a) 2. (b) 3. (c) 4. (a) 5 (c) 6 (d) 7 (c) 8 (a) 9. (d) 10 (c)

Your Score
8-10 Excellent
5-7 Good
1-4 Need improvement

⁽⁰⁾

When the lowest vertebrae are plumb erect,
The spirit reaches to the top of the head.
With the top of the head as is suspended from above;
The whole body feels itself light and nimble.
The Classics of Tai-Chi-Chuan

Make me too brave to lie or be unkind.
Make me too understanding, too, to mind
The little hurts companions give, and friends,
The careless hurts that no one quite intends.
Make me too thoughtful to hurt others so.
Help me know…
Mary C Davies

The whole world is a market place for love,
For naught that is, from love remains remote.
The Eternal wisdom made all things in love:
On Love they all depend, to Love all turn.
Farid

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