I was an idealistic long-haired, bearded hippie in the late 1960′s when I picked up my first bottle of Dr. Bronner’s Peppermint Liquid Castile Soap in a California health food store. It was back then that I was introduced for the first time to several staple products that became a part of my free-spirited life style – natural crunchy granola, nutritious brown rice and Dr. Bronner’s skin tingling Peppermint Soap. I remember well my first reaction to that big navy blue & white soap bottle label, which was covered with tiny words running in all directions, filling up every single inch of space. The rambling text talked about an All-One-God-Faith and Moral ABCs, sprinkling Jewish and Christian ideas with the words of the poet, Rudyard Kipling and other unexpected sources. I didn’t quite know what to make of it, but its oddness and quirky philosophy made me trust that this wasn’t just another commercial-hype Madison-Avenue-advertised brand from a big faceless company. On top of all of that, the label enthusiastically talked about using the all-natural soap for just about everything that could be washed, which fit right in with my simpler-is-better back-to-nature tendencies. I have travelled a long road in life from being a child of the 60′s to now being in my sixties, but the good Doctor’s strange and magical soap is still a part of my life, still wearing its strange words speaking a vision of a better world without war for all. Dr. Bronner’s Soap was one of those common experiences that many of us freedom-seeking sojourners have shared. Read more »

I never had the chance to meet Frank White in-person in this lifetime, but I am connected to him and his teachings through my connection to my own teacher. When I trained to become a yoga teacher at the Rishi Yoga Institute, my dear teacher, Devin Morgan often told each of us that we were benefitting from the vision, teachings and training methods of yoga instilled and passed on to her by her own teacher – an amazing man named Frank White. I had never heard of Frank before, but decided to search online to see what I could find out about him. The man I met through the articles written about him and the memories expressed by people who personally knew him made a deep impression on me. Frank didn’t begin practicing yoga until he was 65 years of age. He eventually earned his certification and became an inspiring teacher with great ability at age 68, teaching students young and old until he passed away at the age of 85 in 2005.

The fact that Frank White had never even tried yoga before he was an older man is inspiring to the many mature people who wonder if they can begin yoga later in life and become accomplished at it. Read more »

I want to make the case for sweating being a desirable and healthy, good thing. Once you begin to understand the importance of sweating to your overall health, and the dangerous health risks you take when you try to prevent or avoid sweating, I think that you will come to agree.

There is nothing more natural to the human condition than sweating. It has kept the human body cool since the very beginning, preventing dangerous overheating, while providing one of the major pathways for ridding the body of biological toxins and impurities. Yet modern humans seem to want to deny the fact that sweat just naturally streams out of the pores that cover our skin – and this aversion to sweating is a rather recent social development!

We humans have openly and freely perspired for all of our history Read more »