Dr. Keith Roach, Syndicated Columnist

DEAR DR. ROACH: In a recent column, you said, I dont find simply telling people to eat less and move more to always be an effective therapy. What do you suggest to patients wanting to lose weight? C.N.

ANSWER: The vast majority of patients I see who are overweight know they are overweight, and have tried unsuccessfully to lose weight. Often, they have tried multiple different types of diets, sometimes having success in the short term but then having gained it back. Eat less, move more, while correct, doesnt address the issues that are important for many people.

Although some of my colleagues will disagree with me, I look at the issue differently. I recommend that people choose a healthy diet. There are many healthy diets, and people can choose what they like, but I recommend plenty of vegetables, some fruits, and good-quality protein sources such as legumes or nuts and lean meats or fatty fish for those who eat them; processed foods, especially starches and processed meats, should be avoided. Along with these dietary changes, which are modest for many people, I advise increasing exercise, from wherever the person starts (within reason).My rationale is that losing weight often seems unattainable to people; however, eating better and exercising more feel like they are within ones control. There is no doubt that people will be healthier with a better diet and with more exercise.

It is true that over a long time, most people who make those dietary and exercise changes will lose weight. But the primary goal is to improve health, even if the weight doesnt come down.

Some people, especially those with medical problems due to their weight, need more-intensive intervention, and I am fortunate to have colleagues in weight management, both medical and surgical, for those who need it.

DEAR DR. ROACH: I went gluten-free four years ago for health reasons. I had no irritable bowel issues or celiac disease. After this amount of time, is it OK to reintroduce wheat and gluten? Does going gluten-free when you do not have celiac disease cause you to become more gluten-sensitive because its reintroduction would be like a foreign substance to your system? I fear I may have caused myself to become gluten-sensitive by avoiding it when I didnt have to. Can you please advise? L.

ANSWER: If you had no gluten sensitivity and no celiac disease, then you should have no issues with going back on a diet containing gluten, as far as I have been able to tell from my reading and my understanding of the condition. However, some people with celiac disease have extremely mild symptoms, such as fatigue or abdominal discomfort after eating, which are symptoms felt by nearly everyone from time to time. Nonetheless, making the diagnosis of celiac disease is important, even in people with minimal or no symptoms. People with celiac disease are more likely to develop autoimmune disorders, nutritional deficiencies and some cancers. Also, dietary intervention is critical in the case of women who might become pregnant.

If you truly had no symptoms at all before you went gluten-free, and still dont once you restart, I dont think any testing is necessary. However, if you notice symptoms, then a blood antibody test while on a diet containing gluten can establish the diagnosis.

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The booklet on diverticulitis explains this common disorder and its treatments. Readers can order a copy by writing:

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To your Good Health: Choose a better diet and excercise regimen for health - Prescott Daily Courier

This is part of ourRoad Trip 2017 summer series "The Smartest Stuff,"about how innovators are thinking up new ways to make you and the world around you smarter.

I lean back against the gray, microfiber-lined cushions inside an egg-shaped pod, and prop my feet on the matching footrest. Black headphones fit snugly over my ears as a spa concierge taps on a Samsung tablet mounted beside me.

"This meditation dome is your personal retreat," the screen reads. "It is a space to calm your senses, relieve stress and align your mind and body."

Exactly what I need.

The concierge lowers an illuminated white dome over my body, making me feel like I'm inside a cocoon. I can see my feet peeking out from under the pod, warding off any sense of claustrophobia. The dome is bathed in a soft light from the LEDs, which glow bright green (a color that "stimulates inner peace," according to the brochure).

A woman's soothing voice tells me to close my eyes. "Take the brief pause we all need to live our most meaningful lives," the voice says through my headphones. "Your body and mind need different things every day, and that undefinable part of yourself will respond in turn. So take this time, just for you, and breathe. Welcome to your journey to the present."

For the next 20 minutes, all I have to do is relax. This may be the best assignment I've ever had.

The author tries out a Somadome, where dark blue light eases stress. It seems to be working.

I'm at the Ojai Valley Inn & Spa, about 33 miles from Santa Barbara, California, and I'm sitting in a Somadome. This "personal meditation pod" combines color therapy, binaural beats (using sound to influence mood) and special energy healing tiles to help people bliss out.

Yep, it's a high-tech machine that helps people shed stress that's too often brought on by a nonstop diet of emails, texts, tweets and world events. All our tech is freaking us out.

The result is that most Americans me included are feeling stressed, according to the American Psychological Association's anxiety meter, which has been surveying the population's stress levels since 2007. More than four out of five US adults constantly or often check their email, texts and social media accounts, says the APA, adding "this attachment to devices and the constant use of technology is associated with higher stress levels for these Americans."

We can't help ourselves. That's because every time we post, share, "like" a comment or look for something on our phones, we get a sense of reward that keeps us coming back for more. This feeling triggers our brains to release dopamine, the same chemical that causes us to crave food, sex and drugs. Dopamine is at its most stimulating when the rewards come at unpredictable times, such as phone alerts, social media likes and texts.

"Really, we're still cave people," says Martin Talks, founder of the Digital Detoxing consultancy and author of the book, "A to Z of Digital Detoxing."

What do you want to do today? Somadome offers 20 different sessions, depending on your goal. Some are guided, while others simply have calming sounds like waves and pulsing binaural beats.

"When there's an alert, I must see it. It literally becomes a matter of life or death because people can't resist looking at it, [even] while driving a car."

Meditation the 5,000-year-old practice of shutting out the mental noise rattling in our heads can help. Studies show it may lower blood pressure, improve heart rate and reduce anxiety. Researchers at Harvard University found that meditation can rebuild gray matter in the hippocampus part of the brain associated with learning, memory, compassion and self-awareness in just eight weeks. Cancer patients say it makes treatment more bearable.

"There's something really powerful about just being in your own little world for a minute," Sarah Attia, the CEO and creator of Somadome, tells me before I visit Ojai.

When my mother, who was diagnosed with breast cancer almost two years ago, told me she found meditation to be calming, I wondered if it could help me too. But the question was how to get my brain and gadgets to shut off long enough to actually de-stress. Just thinking about feeling less stressed makes me more tense. Could technology actually calm me down instead of being the conduit to my stress?

So began my "journey to the present."

I stand very still in the dimly lit treatment room, arms raised slightly as a woman waves a piece of burning sage around me. The scent wafts through the air, calming me even as my brain tries to process what the heck is going on.

I'm being smudged.

This is the first step in Ojai's Sound Energy Therapy treatment. "Smudging is just clearing the energetic fields of you, of me, of the room," says Susan Wichmann, the bodyworker and healer conducting my session.

I lie down on a massage table, close my eyes and slow my breathing. The sound of wind chimes echoes softly in the room. The next thing I know, I'm jolted awake by a feeling of vibrations on my abdomen. I had dozed off somewhere between the wind chimes and vibrating Tibetan bowls placed on different parts of my body where my energy was "stuck." Wichmann says her techniques get my energy moving again.

Chris Fortin, Zen priest

"I'm just kind of told where to go," she says after the treatment. "Just see how you're feeling physically, mentally, spiritually over the next few days, and see if you notice anything. Some people don't notice a thing. Some have profound transformations."

I'm still waiting to figure it out.

Energy healing, which has deep roots in Eastern medicine, is based on the belief that the human body exudes energies that affect our mental and physical health. The Somadome produces its energy therapy through microcrystalline tiles. (Bear with me. It's hard to explain some of this stuff while skirting less-scientific topics like Chi, Chakra balancing and aura cleansing.)

Shhh! No one wants to be bothered by loud phone calls, smoking or "disquieting conversation" while at the Ojai Valley Inn & Spa in Southern California.

More specifically, the Somadome uses so-called Biosyntonie ceramic discs that, according to proponents, block harmful electromagnetic frequencies from phones and other electronics, and "increase energy through the restoration of the normal vortex waves." I'm not making this up.

While there's no scientific evidence to support that claim, I can tell you I'm relaxed as heck while I'm in the meditation pod, although I suspect its light and sound therapy also have a lot to do with that.

Some historians claim sound therapy goes back 40,000 years, when the Aboriginal people of Australia first used ancient didgeridoos to mend bones and heal illnesses. And for centuries, Tibetan monks have used singing bowls to help them enter meditative states. More recently, the British Academy of Sound Therapy (yes, really) claims 95 percent of its clients felt calmer following treatment.

In the Somadome's case, we're talking binaural beats, which Dr. Gerald Oster first described in his 1973 paper in Scientific American called "Auditory Beats in the Brain." Oster found that when the right and left ears hear sounds at different frequencies, the brain produces a third, inaudible beat that can produce five different brainwave states.

Sarah Attia, Somadome

Depending on the brainwave's frequency, your brain marches to a beat that can, for instance, hone cognition (gamma waves), increase concentration (beta), boost creativity (alpha), speed up learning (theta) and help you relax and heal (delta). If you have an important project coming up, you'll want something that triggers gamma or beta waves. Want to really relax? Then delta's the brainwave for you.

"If I want to be more creative, I listen to alpha," says Kelly Howell, the mindfulness expert who voiced the soothing guided meditations in my ear. "If I have trouble sleeping, I tune into delta."

Light therapy is a big part of the experience, too. Somadome cites research that says light helps regulate the autonomic nervous system, which controls bodily functions like breathing, heart rate and digestion.

Each Somadome session (it's $45 for my 20-minutes in Ojai) begins and ends with white light, to "promote balance, increase harmony and contribute to overall healing." Violet contributes to "spiritual insights" and boosts immunity. Green stimulates "inner peace" and strengthens the nervous system. Dark blue eases stress while turquoise "improves intuition and sensitivity."

A 20-minute session with something like a Somadome is great. But what to do on a daily basis? Sure, you can go on retreat vacations at the beach, tickets to a football game, or a night in binge watching Netflix. Or maybe take the occasional mental health day off from work.

It turns out, there are plenty of iOS and Android apps and gadgets to ease anxiety and help us relax. Apple -- with its free Apple Watch app called Breathe wants you to remember to, well, breathe. Biofeedback apps usually rely on wearables or other sensors that detect things like our temperature, respiratory rates and heart rates and then suggest ways you can chill. Unyte's biofeedback hardware (currently $219 on Indiegogo) clips to your ear, while Muse is a $249 headband that monitors your brain's electrical activity.

Of course, contemplating the beauties of nature can help you relax, too.

"People meditating typically don't know if they're in a meditative state or not," says Unyte CEO Jason Tafler. "But it helps to know."

Biofeedback uses several kinds of exercises, including deep breathing, guided imagery, tightening and then relaxing different muscle groups, and mindful meditation (focusing all your thoughts on your abdominal muscles as you breathe in and out, for instance).

"This is a brand new idea that's 2,500 years old," jokes Richard Gevirtz, a psychologist, biofeedback expert and adviser to technology companies, including Unyte. When you inhale for about four seconds and exhale for six, you can change your heart rate and improve your mental and physical state, his research has found. "Clinically, we've seen if you [do this for] 10 minutes a day, you have some powerful changes in your body over the course of six weeks," Gevirtz says.

Dr. John Denninger, a psychiatrist and director of research at the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, sees both pros and cons to mobile apps and gadgets.

"If [high-tech devices] get people who wouldn't even think about doing this to do some breathing exercises for even a minute a day, then that's progress," says Denninger, who's investigating the medical benefits of stress-reduction techniques like yoga or meditation. But "one thing I worry about with devices is they could just be a distraction."

The instructions say to "meet at the yurt," most definitely the first time I've been told that. It's another line in the description that really makes my heart race, though: "Please note there is no cell phone reception at Green Gulch."

Richard Gevirtz, biofeedback expert

I've signed up for an all-day meditation retreat through the San Francisco Zen Center at the Green Gulch Farm near Muir Beach, a 45-minute drive north of the city. I've come to the sunnier side of the Golden Gate Bridge many times, but today I'm trying something new: Buddhist meditation. In a yurt. In this case, it's a round, red structure surrounded by a faded wooden deck and fragrant bay laurel trees.

I'm greeted at said yurt by Chris Fortin, a licensed psychotherapist and spiritual counselor who's also the Zen priest and teacher leading today's meditations.

"I'm as addicted as anybody to my phone," Fortin tells me. "But these cell phones are fairly new devices. I just feel like there's a deep need in the world right now, where people can come together where it's safe, where we can speak about what's true beyond sound bites."

We're just 15 women sitting silently in a circle some on the floor, some in chairs with our eyes closed and hands clasped against our chests for zazen (sitting meditation). Sometimes we walk very slowly and deliberately through the woods and gardens surrounding the yurt. That's kinhin meditation. The silence is broken only by the occasional bird call and the plunking of seeds as they fall from the trees.

"The world is pretty crazy," Fortin tells me. "We need all the help we can get."

I agree. We do need all the help we can get, which is why I'm ready to climb into the Somadome again.

I'm feeling so calm, I barely even notice the photographer snapping shots of my feet or the tech workers running on treadmills outside the room. I'm in a Somadome at the health and wellness center in Adobe's headquarters in San Jose, California. The software maker has owned one of the pods since January 2016 and plans to buy a second for its San Francisco offices.

Employees can sign up for free sessions throughout the day or just show up to see if the Somadome is available. It rarely is. "We have a steady 85 percent booking [rate] on it," says Kris Herrera, Adobe's global site operations strategy manager. "When we put it in, our target was 35 percent. It's been so well received."

The Somadome uses sound, color and energy therapies to help relieve stress often brought on by too much tech. In light therapy, violet "contributes to spiritual insights" and boosts immunity.

Adobe's not the only high-tech company that sees the benefits of meditation. Others include Google, Facebook and Apple, whose co-founder Steve Jobs famously embraced Zen meditation and spent time at an Indian ashram. (So did Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg.) Google launched a "Search Inside Yourself" course to help employees learn mindfulness meditation, and now runs the group as a nonprofit, the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute, to teach techniques to individuals and other companies.

Mindfulness is also gaining popularity in traditional medicine and becoming a component of fitness centers. Somadome is working with Equinox to bring the dome to the high-end fitness club, and Planet Fitness plans to test out the machine. The Four Seasons in Westlake, California, has one installed in its California Health & Longevity wellness facility, which its clinical psychologists can recommend it as part of patient therapy. Right now, there are 20 Somadomes in the world.

Dr. Leasa Lowy, an OB-GYN and bariatric physician who runs the 360 ME medical, weight and lifestyle clinic in the Portland, Oregon, area, found out about Somadome through her daughter, a competitive tennis player who was training at the Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks, California, which also has one of the machines. She bought two of them six months ago. The machine costs $14,500, plus $100 for monthly maintenance and content fees.

Lowy plans to conduct medical research with Somadome to track its impact on patients. So far, she's encouraged by the anecdotal evidence.

One patient bikes to Lowy's office to use Somadome before work four days a week because she says it clears her mind and helps her plan her day. Two others who work night shifts use Somadome whenever their hours change and they need to adjust.

Click here to see more Road Trip adventures.

"The most skeptical person, you can put in there and they see it," Lowy says. "You're going to sit quietly for 20 minutes and have an adult time out. Who wouldn't want that?"

Somadome has big ambitions. It's working on a way to mass-produce its dome and refine the machine to include more sensors and possibly incorporate facial recognition technology "so users can get direct feedback about how their session is affecting them," says Cooper Lee, Somadome's technologist.

It's also building a smartphone app that helps you find and book sessions nearby. The Somadome will know who you are when you arrive, and the app will be able to make recommendations for which session you should take based on your age, sex, the type of work you do and what you're trying to accomplish. You'll also be able to use heart rate monitors or wearables like Fitbit to track what happens to your body in and after using Somadome and save all of that data in the app.

"The idea is to use Somadome as a place where people can both take a session that's curated or specifically aimed at their goal, as well as give them feedback," says Gilles Attia, a technology attorney who also partnered with his daughter, Sarah, to bring Somadome to market.

Back at Ojai, I try "Manifest" for my first session, which aims to give me "a renewed sense of peace and guidance" by talking about "the law of attraction and the connectedness of our universe." It's best used "when starting a journey or setting your intentions," the description says. The dome turns a soft violet as Howell's voice tells me to "concentrate on harmony."

I hear birds chirping and Howell's voice telling me all is right with the world. I'm told to repeat phrases like, "I know that I am one with the Universal Mind."

The next day, I opt for "Heal," another guided session that's part of Somadome's physical wellness track. This one uses "delta to release HGH [human growth hormone], which helps to accelerate healing, boost your immune system, and support well-being." I'm told it's "best used when you feel misaligned or have ailments." Considering I'm in physical therapy for typing-related nerve damage, I figure I'll give it a shot.

Dr. Leasa Lowy

After a while, I don't have to focus as much to steadily breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth. I feel my shoulders relax and my muscles loosen. I have no way to track the time, and the best thing is I don't even care. I simply breathe.

Did I achieve my goal of getting my mind to stop wandering? No, but that's OK.

"You have to go past the idea of meditation being about clearing your mind," says Cory Muscara a meditation expert who runs his own clinic in Long Island, New York, and teaches mindfulness at the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University.

"You're setting yourself up for failure with that mentality," he says. "I spent six months, 14 hours a day in meditation [with Buddhist monks in Myanmar]. The longest I went without a thought was maybe 48 seconds or a minute."

Eventually, three bells chime. I feel like I could stay in the Somadome for hours.

I don't know if the sessions actually improved my ability to meditate or if I'll see any lasting effects. I don't know if the studies will show real scientific benefits from the energy tiles and other therapies, or if they'll prove to be snake oil. And I don't know if the machines will eventually be found outside of fancy spas and clinics.

What I do know is I feel pretty damn relaxed.

Road Trip 2016: Reporters' dispatches from the field on tech's role in the global refugee crisis.

Road Trip 2015:CNET hunts for innovation outside the Silicon Valley bubble.

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High tech meditation pod relieves stress caused by tech - CNET - CNET

Before you meditate, you must surrender your iPhone. At least thats what a couple of serene young women tell me when I walk into Unplug Meditation, an airy Los Angeles studio with inspirational slogans on the walls. (Keep Going! Live the Life You Love!)

Im here for a 45-minute class called Inner Peace, which promises to teach me the basicsof deep mindfulness, making me calmer, more productive, more focused, and more joyful. After passing through the gift shop, which peddles crystals, aromatherapy eye pillows, and Bad Spirit Remover candles, I settle into a black faux-leather floor seat. Violet lights beam down on a couple of dozen people, from spandexed millennials to graying businessmen. Its like a yoga studio without the yoga.

Thoughts can make us sick or they can empower us, says Sherly Sulaiman, a hypnotherapist with an Australian accent, who sits on a dais. We want them to empower us, right? She instructs us to lift an index finger every time a thought arises. Remember, you are not the thought. You are aware of your thoughts. Spa music wafts from the speakers as index fingers tap out a frantic Morse code. A truck horn blares. Eventually, a bell rings. Ill be outside, says Sulaiman, if you want to ask a question or shareor if you just want a healing hug.

A new breed of upscale meditation studios, which package contemplative practices into 30-to-60-minute classes for about $20 a pop, are spreading across the country. Designed for the affluent mainstream, the hip spaces offer diverse services, including private sessions for about $150 and five-day, $300 mindfulness summer camps for teens. At Inscape, which opened in New York City in November, meditators loll in beanbag chairs under a sailcloth and bamboo dome; at a Los Angeles studio called the Den Meditation, the wellness crowd attend classes like Lunchtime Detox and Candlelight Relax. Following the trajectory of yoga, these for-profit centers have opened in cities from Miami to Calgary.

Im the gateway drug, says Suze Yalof Schwartz, the founder of Unplug and a former Glamour editor. Schwartz floats about the studio, greeting customers with frenetic exuberance. People who would never meditate are now practicing, because were meditation lite. Unplug plans to open two more locationsin Los Angeles and San Franciscoover the next year, and the brands app has users in 37 countries. Its the Netflix of meditation, says Schwartz, beaming.

Meditation, you may have noticed, is becoming as ubiquitous as Starbucks. Studies suggest that it can improve concentration and working memory, lower blood pressure, and even boost immune-system functioning, among many other benefits. Nearly 1,000 apps, such as Headspace and Calm, promise to help you find inner stillness in a now $1.1 billion meditation and mindfulness industry, which includes therapy, classes, retreats, and other services. This swift commercialization is alarming some longtime teachers, who worry that the new studios present an attractive but diluted version of spiritual practices.

Secularized mindfulness programs are like an industrial approach to meditation, says Jesse Maceo Vega-Frey, a teacher at Vipassana Hawaii, a nonprofit Buddhist organization that offers weekly meditation as well as multi-day retreats on the Big Island. Theyve turned it into a commodity and replaced its foundations of generosity and morality with promises of productivity and effectivenesshigher test scores, more effective soldiers, greater wealth, more power.

Others compare selling meditation to bottling water: it makes some people rich while commercializing an abundant resource. But arguably the biggest concern is whether these for-profit centers instructors can support the full range of emotional experiences that practitioners encounter. In some spiritual traditions, becoming a teacher can require more than a decade of serious study. Some of the new studios require as little as 100 hours of training.

According to the guidelines for Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, an eight-week intensive program, some practitioners may find that negative emotions worsen before they improve. This is simply because of heightened awareness. Willoughby Britton, a professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown University who studies challenging meditation experiences, suggests seeking out teachers with meditation-instructor training and at least three years of personal practice. But the onus is also on the studios.

It would be easy to dismiss the trend as superficial, but as with exercise, many people are more likely to develop beneficial habits with the help of guided sessions. Its like going to a fitness class for the mind, says Stefanie Seifer, an actor and filmmaker who visits the Den several times a week. Sometimes its hard to practice on your own. I knew how to meditate before; I just didnt do it. But does marketing meditation as a feel-good cure-all set people up for frustration? After all, on any given day the practice can range from blissful to exasperating.

Nobody here pretends you walk in and its magic, says Tal Rabinowitz, founder of the Den. You still have to do it, and we are here to guide you. Like anything, it takes practice and time.

Jack Kornfield, one of the first Buddhist teachers to bring mindfulness to the West, is not particularly worried. Contemplative practices have taken many different forms in Asian cultures for centuries, he explains, and these new studios will survive only if people find them beneficial.

I see it as an offering that serves people where they are, and thats the point, he says. A certain number will know intuitively that much greater depths are possible. But the fact that anybody goes in and takes 20 or 30 minutes to quiet their mind and tend to their body and listen to their hearthallelujah.

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The Pricey New World of Meditation - Outside Magazine

TO THE NEW OWNERS: A Memoir of Martha's Vineyard. By Madeleine Blais. Atlantic Monthly Press. 288 pages. $26.

It's the human face of Martha's Vineyard, not the place itself, that entices in Madeleine Blais' charming, elegiac account of summers spent on its shores.

Blais, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist whose In These Girls, Hope is a Miracle was a finalist for the National Book Award, married into a socially and politically prominent family that spent summers simply but well on the Vineyard. Sidestepping an unseemly Lament of the One Percent regarding the 2014 sale of the Katzenbachs' long-time island retreat, her account of that family's history (and the island's) lends the mystique of Martha's Vineyard a more grounded view.

The summer home on Thumb Point, built in 1976, rested in a setting of blue gold water on three sides but with no heat, no phone and no TV. Rebuilt in 1978 with a few more amenities, simplicity remained the watchword. For its generations of inhabitants and many guests, the lifestyle meant a steady diet of lassitude and self-direction raised to an art form. Not to say there weren't plenty of activities. After a few days you became a happy animal, scampering barefoot, feral, and fortified, writes the author, currently a professor at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.

After providing capsule personal histories of the principal players, all of whom lived by language and shared a passion for social justice, Blais recounts how she and her husband happened upon the happy idea of using old-style ship's log books to record their summers, the minute details and larger themes. There is some excellent writing here, but also some rather mundane material from the logs kept by family members throughout their years at the Point.

But Blais also engages the reader with peripheral stories of how Chappaquiddick and the movie Jaws initiated the transformation of the island from a well-kept secret into a celebrity playground, some of it gated and closed off, with a regrettable invasion of McMansions. The Old Vineyard now exists as a kind of misty-eyed platonic ideal of Kindly Year-Rounders and Grateful Summer Guests coexisting in perfect harmony with a minimum of traffic and a plenitude of just-caught fish.

In her memoir, augmented by recollections from her husband and other island denizens, the Vineyard remains endearingly quaint, though not without a measure of snob appeal, which Blais gamely dissects, along with the island hierarchy and its sometimes inexplicable codes of conduct. The island sometimes feels like a club with secret rules that no one appears all that eager to share.

She also explores the gradual process of racial integration on the Vineyard.

Like any seemingly idyllic place, there are troubles beneath the island's veneer, and a clear-cut difference between the outlooks of full-time vs. summer residents, much less the tourist hordes that arrive by ferry.

Apart from its compelling personal portraits, the book benefits from much gentle humor, a compensatory sweetness, and a touching coda. There are also resonant bits of wisdom, such as Blais' meditation on an evening party: I looked around that night and realized that at certain signal moments the people you gather and the place where they assemble can be in and of itself a work of art, as real as any painting in a museum.

And at least as sustaining.

Reviewer Bill Thompson is a freelance writer and editor based in Charleston.

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Review: 'To the New Owners' a meditation on the character of Martha's Vineyard - Charleston Post Courier

William Parker, Bronx-born bassist-composer extraordinaire, is one of the few jazz musicians who came up through the avant-garde (making his first big marks as a sideman to Cecil Taylor and David S. Ware) yet manages to fuse its techniques and innovations with standard rhythms, a sense of blues that might have wafted up from the Delta, a dash of wit, and a seemingly effortless swing.

His new two-CD album, Meditation / Resurrection (on the AUM Fidelity label), was recorded in the course of a single day last October, at Brooklyn's System Two Studio by Michael Marciano, who also mixed it live, to give it the feel of a spontaneous set at a club.

Or, rather, two sets, as the two discs feature slightly different quartets: Parker's regular bandmates, alto saxophonist Rob Brown and drummer Hamid Drake, joined, on Disc 1, by trumpeter Jalalu-Kalvert Nelson and, on Disc 1, by pianist Cooper-Mooreboth of them wide-ranging musicians, steeped in the avant-garde but also composers for theater, who have collaborated with Parker in the past.

The first disc has more robust rhythmsmost of its seven tracks are danceablewhile the second disc jets more adventurously. None of the music is chaotic or atonal; this is riveting, complex, but melodic jazz, deeply rooted in the fundamentals even while skywriting.

I first heard Parker in 1984 on the violinist Billy Bang's The Fire from Within, one of the startling great albums from that period, and it was no surprise when I learned that he'd studied under Jimmy Garrison (Coltrane's great bassist) and Richard Davis (who played with Eric Dolphy and Andrew Hill). I stumbled across his great percussionist, Hamid Drake, around the same time, on some of saxophonist Fred Anderson's recordings. Like Anderson, Drake was born in Louisiana, moved as a child to the Chicago area, and gravitated to the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, the collective that produced Lester Bowie, Henry Threadgill, and many other pioneers. You hear all those traditions in Drake's percussion styles (on trap set and various hand drums), including many othersmainly from Africa and the Caribbeanthat he's intensely studied on his own.

These are all musicians who should be better known but seem not to care very much that they're not. (I might be wrong about this; I don't know any of them personally.) They carve their own paths, thrive in their own communities. Parker, who is also a poet and plays various African instruments, has been organizing the annual Vision Festival on Manhattan's Lower East Side for the last 20 years.

If you want to go all-out, I'd recommend his eight-CD set, Wood Flute Songs (if you can find it, and it's worth the hunt), a collection of live performances, with various ensembles, from 20062012. (If you want to sample a bit, start with "Groove #7" on Disc 1.) Brief clips from various albums can be heard on AUM Fidelity's website (click on Artists, then William Parker). But Meditation / Resurrection is an excellent pool for a waist-high jump in. And the live-mix sound is very good: crisp, warm, and present.

Excerpt from:

William Parker Quartets, Meditation / Resurrection - Stereophile Magazine

Some people forcibly hold their breath to increase lung capacity or athletic stamina. Others, to achieve a state of light-headedness.

But playing with consciousness doesn't bode well near water, experts said.Two recent drowning deaths in the Sacramento area have been traced to submerged meditating and breathing practices .

On July 18, Sacramento yoga instructor Aaron Pappas was practicing something called the Wim Hof breathing technique. He was holding his breath and trying to hyperventilate because it relaxed him,his girlfriend Sarah Estabrook said.

When she last saw him alive, he was sitting in a pool at Asha Urban Baths with his head and shoulders above water. He lost consciousness and drowned while performing the breathing practice, she said. He died in the hospital on July 23.

Earlier this summerYoav Timmer, 33, died while meditating face down in the Yuba River.

Rich Hanna, assistant director of parks and recreation for the city of Santa Barbara, said people who challenge themselves to breath-holding often don't realize they're in trouble until it's too late.

Hanna pushed to ban breath-holding in public pools after a young swimmer died during training a few years ago.

Theyre just kind of in this state of...euphoria or whatever," he said. "Theres some changes in their system and they don't recognize they're in danger. They basically just go unconscious in the water and pass out."

Karen Wilkinson, a yoga instructor and friend of Pappas, said he had a tendency to get extreme with his practice.

"He was always pushing the envelope, mediating for longer, trying to reach a state of consciousness that he couldnt reach just in his daily life," she said.

"My heart breaks for Aaron, his family and friends, as well as the whole community he's contributed so much to," said Asha Urban Baths owner Cori Martinez. "My prayers are with everyone who feels the loss of his passing."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends against what they call Dangerous Underwater Breath-holding Behavior.

The creators of the Wim Hof method urge practitioners to never try the breathing technique in or near water.

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Breath-holding, Meditation Leads To Two Drowning Deaths ... - Capital Public Radio News

Photo: Michael Cummo / Hearst Connecticut Media

Greenwich native to host free meditation event

Greenwich native Julio Rivera may have stepped away from software engineering to forge a new career path and lifestyle, but traces of his tech background remain in his navigation of the entrepreneurial landscape.

After realizing his original concept to host mindfulness events in New York City under his brand Zen Compass wasnt best suited to his skills and goals, he pivoted. He dropped the vowels mostly made a new website and refined his strategy. I realized I didnt want to do event production, Rivera said of Zen Compass. Ive been playing with this idea for a couple months and now Im forming more of an online community.

Under the name ZnCo, Rivera still plans to host events, but theyll be smaller, more intimate and he will lead the meditation and mindfulness practices.

In addition, ZnCo will be grounded in holding online events that people can attend virtually. Im reaching out to teachers from around the country to lead practices and people will be able to learn meditation from them at their convenience, Rivera said. I want to make teachers more accessible to people anywhere.

His intentions for Zen Compass were always rooted in forming a supportive community for people to learn about meditation and encourage each other in their practices. After holding several events around New York City, he realized an online community may serve this purpose better since location will no longer limit attendance, he said.

To launch his restructured community, Rivera is planning a Meditation and Mindfulness event at the Boys and Girls Club of Greenwich on Aug. 10. Im planning on using this as a way to gauge interest from people around here in ZnCo, he said. The event will take place from 7 to 9 p.m. with refreshments at the beginning and question and answer period about meditation included. These sorts of events and the online ones are free for now, Rivera said, as hes focusing on creating value with his brand first.

Hes working with several Greenwich businesses that promote a healthy lifestyle on potentially sponsoring his kickoff event, he said.

I know there will be some hiccups as I learn what Im doing as I go, he said. But I think Ive got it now.

Contact the writer at mbennett@greenwichtime.com; Twitter@Macaela_

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Greenwich native to host free meditation event - Greenwich Time

Alexander de Cadenets series of bronze and silver sculpturesfeaturing consumables contain a deeper spiritual message. This includes his Life-Burger hamburgersculptures and Creation a large scale shinybronze apple with three bites taken from it two adult bites and baby bite inbetween.Creation explores the mysterious process ofcreativity of how both a human being and an artwork come into existence. Alexstates, In Genesis, we weretold by God not to take a bite from the apple, yetit was by taking a bite that we became self-conscious and self-consciousnessis what is necessary formakingart.

Art is way of exploring what gives life a deeper meaning and evolves in relation to my own life journey Alexander de Cadenet

The Life-Burger sculptures explore therelationship between the spiritual dimension of art and consumerism and, attheir root, are an exploration of whatgives life meaning. Art historian EdwardLucie-Smith has written, The Life-Burgers offer a sharp critique of thesociety we live in and yet simultaneously theyare luxury objects in their ownright.

L.A. art critic Peter Frank takes a similarline when he writes, Were at a moment in modern history where the excesshas gotten staggeringly wretched.Oligarchs worldwide shock us and shamethemselves with their conspicuous consumption a consumption that extends tothe rest of us, as consumed noless thanas consumers. Alexander de Cadenetencapsulates this emerging neo-feudal order in his gilded and multi-deckedburgers. For the mega-rich, theworld is their fast food joint, and theirappetite insatiable. Over 3.6 billion sold!

In October Alex will exhibit Creation and aselection of Life-Burgers at St Stephen Walbrook, where we will also host a conference,organised in partnershipwith Alex and Watkins Mind Body Spirit Magazine, thatwill explore the relationship between art and the spiritual dimension. Theconference takes wordsspoken by Eckhart Tolle in an interview with Alex asinspiration, True art can play an important part in the awakening ofhumanity.

Alex has said that Being an artist is abouthaving a voice in the world, a pure and authentic voice in a challenging world.It is a way of sharing personalinsights and encounters with the world, ofexploring the mysteries of our existence and our place in the grand scheme. Artis the intersection between theformlessdimension and the world of form; itembodies our connection to nature or the intelligence that is responsible forour existences.

He has recently founded Awakened Artists; aplatform to showcase specially invited artists whose work accesses a deeperspiritual dimension. AwakenedArtists is an international community of visualartists who believe that the production of art is a spiritual act andcontributes towards the evolvingconsciousnessof those that create it and alsothose that experience it. On the back of these initiatives, I wanted tofind out more about his understanding of art as a way of exploring what giveslife a deeper meaning and how thishas evolved in relation to his own lifejourney.

Alexander de cadenet creation

JE: Your recent works playfully critique consumer and celebrityculture while using elements of those cultures to do so. To what extent do yousee yourself as aninsider or an outsider to those cultures?

ADC: I grew up exposed to these values and it hasbeen valuable for me in some ways as a yardstick by which to compare thingsto and also given me insights intothe darker aspects of it.

JE: What we consume and how we do so seem major preoccupations of the LifeBurgers and of Creation. What seems problematic about consumer culture?

ADC: Whats problematic is the desire to consumeand accumulate for the sake of it often to run away from pain or discomfort beauty and pleasure can at somepoint become quite warped and grotesque withoutlimits, where even the original value gets lost or diluted within excess. Ithink its become more and moreprevalent in the world today and its also verymuch part of the art world system too in the way that artworks are commoditizedand their original beauty canget lost in the transformation into statussymbols.

JE: You have been called a playful moralist. What does that phrase meanto you?

ADC: am conscious of my own ambivalentrelationship to morality so hopefully any moralizing is not done withself-righteousness but more as a way to exploreand express the inherentparadoxes and richness of life.

JC: You reference the Genesis creation stories in your Meteoritesculpture series and the Memento Mori tradition with your Life Burgers. Whatinfluence has theBible and Christianity had on your art?

ADC: Yes, I grew up with a close relationship withJesus. I have sometimes referenced stories from the Bible with my artworks overthe years. E.g. The Eye of theNeedle model, 30 Pieces of Silver or morerecently the on-going series of apple sculptures. The Bible is part of auniversal sub-conscious is deeply infusedwith meaning, its a powerful,established language of spiritual symbolism that one can reference tocommunicate and express certain thoughts and feelings.

JE: You performed a singing bowl meditation before photographing your DesertFlower series of photographs. What part does meditation play in your creativeprocess?

ADC: In one sense, my artwork reflects theevolution of my own consciousness and the sorts of statements Id like to sharein the world. Meditation is a process ofconnecting to a deeper dimension ofexistence a way of tuning into the deeper reality of our connection toNature. Sometimes it can get you into aharmonious zone that is reflected in thework you produce while in a meditative state.

JE: You have begun a series of interviews with artists exploring thespiritual dimension in art. What would you say that you have learned from thoseinterviews todate?

ADC: The process of interviewing others can enhanceones own connection to that dimension, it also has a strong social element asense of kindred spirit withthose who are interested in similar aspects oflife.

JE: Have you been surprised by the number of artists for whom thespiritual dimension features strongly in their practice?

ADC: I think the earliest art forms had a reallyfundamental and deeply significant meaning for those that created them. Theearliest cave paintings and bone orstone statuettes were infused with deepmeaning for the societies that made them. It seems that there are a growingnumber of artists and creatives that wishtomake something beyond being justsurface decoration and something that can bring a deeper consciousness orawareness into peoples lives.

JE: You interviewed Eckhart Tolle as part of that series, which was aparticular thrill for you personally. What has impressed you about Tolleswritings and whatstood out for you from the experience of meeting him?

ADC: Despite what he has achieved in the world,having status and success is not what drives him. That is a by-product ofhis work. He certainly does not wantpower over others. He desires to share hisexperience of life, in order for others to become more aware, conscious and to connectto beauty and the joy ofexistence. There was a particular moment when I sawmyself reflected in his eyes and I believe he saw himself reflected in mine. Itis rare to be able to go to aplace of such openness and acceptance like that,especially with an enlightened being and it touched my life.

JE: You will be exhibiting at St Stephen Walbrook in the autumn. Whydo you think a church is an appropriate location to show your work?

ADC: This is a particularly beautiful space and itswonderful to show ones art in this environment. This church also has a richhistory of contemporary art. As thisseries of artworks offers reflection onlife and being, I feel they have an affinity with what the church is all about.

JE: You are planning a conference on art and the spiritual dimensionwith the title Art awakening humanity, a phrase taken from Eckhart Tolle, andhave begun anew grouping of artists called Awakened Artists. In what ways canart awaken humanity and why do you think humanity needsawakening?

ADC: Eckhart also said that The true function ofart is to awaken others and I agree with that. You can invest into an artworka deeper spiritual message that iswhat the artists in the Awakened Artists groupwish to achieve. Yes, there are a lot of problems at the moment in our societywith deeply ingrained ignorantand even dangerous viewpoints that can causesuffering and harm to the planet and its occupants. As an artist, you have avoice to talk about the things thatmatter to you a chance to have your say. Drawingthings to peoples attention or offering insights can be helpful in combattingthese behaviours.

JE: What do you hope the Awakened Artists group can achieve?

ADC: Id like that it is a platform to bringtogether artists who would like to contribute to a shared vision of art assomething that brings awareness and a deeperconsciousness into those thatexperience it.

JE: How can art offer access to a deeper dimension of existence andcontribute towards the evolution of consciousness?

ADC: Either experientially like for example encounteringthe phenomenon of a James Turrell light installation or by offering insightsinto the issues we face todayin such a way that genuinely moves people.

JE: Tell me a little about the work of David C. Greene, the firstmember of Awakened Artists. What is there about his work that fits the brieffor this new group?

ADC: I find Davids work exceptionally authentic.I dont know of any artist on the planet today who focuses on the beauty of thedesert landscape at night and thephenomena that can be encountered there. Isee his work is part of the heritage and tradition of Edward Hopper meets a bitof Georgia OKeeffe its abouthispersonal life but has a deep connection tothe beauty of nature. David Greenes night time landscapes absorb you you gettransported there and cannotremain unaffected by the experience. LikeEckharts photos, his landscapes open our eyes to what is already there.

JE: The desert features in your work and that of David C. Greene. Whatpart does the desert play in your spirituality?

ADC: One of my favourite lines in Eckharts The Power of Now reads: Presence isneeded to become aware of the beauty, the majesty, the sacredness of nature.Have you ever gazed up into the infinity of space on a clear night, awestruckby the absolute stillness and inconceivable vastness of it? This says a lot tomeand ifa piece of art can give a sense of this or be a signpost to look inthis direction, I believe it has a great value to humanity, not just for peopletoday but Ithink also for future generations.

Words By Revd Jonathan Evens Priest-in-charge St Stephen Walbrook London

Creations by Alexander de Cadenet, St Stephen Walbrook from 3 Octoberuntil 3 November 2017.

Art Awakening Humanity, 25 October, St Stephen Walbrook https://ssw.churchsuite.co.uk/events/standzg2.

Awakened Artists https://www.awakenedartists.com/.

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Art Awakening Humanity Alexander de Cadenet Interviewed By Revd Jonathan Evens - ArtLyst

Now going into eighth grade, she's setting her sights on a topic a bit more complicated than the cookie business: cybersecurity.

The 12-year-old from Palmdale, Calif., is one of 1.8 million Girl Scouts nationwide who will have the opportunity starting in 2018 to adorn their vests, tunics and sashes with merit badges for information security, an addition announced in June.

And last week, Girl Scouts of the USA introduced another 23 new badges in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) and the outdoors.

"Girl Scouts will be able to design robots and racecars, go on environmentally conscious camping trips, create algorithms, collect data in the great outdoors, try their hand at engineering," the Girl Scouts said when announcing the badges.

The moves illustrate the ongoing evolution of the 105-year-old organization, which in recent years has expanded its merit badges beyond those associated with traditionally feminine skills - think "babysitter" or "dinner party."

It's a shift Lewelling appreciates.

"I'll definitely be trying to get cybersecurity badges," she said. "I'm going into eighth grade now and we use technology for everything so I want to know how I can protect myself online."

The 18 cybersecurity badges - earned by mastering online safety, dealing with cyberbullies and coding, among other skills - are the result of a multiyear partnership between the Girl Scouts and Palo Alto Networks, a security company in California's Silicon Valley.

It's not the first technology-and-Scouting collaboration. Girl Scouts of the USA recently partnered with Google to offer coding activities.

Young Daisies and Brownies won't be fending off cyberattacks from hackers and rogue nation states - there's an age-appropriate curriculum designed with help from Palo Alto Networks that includes basic computer skills, techniques for staying safe online, and practice in keeping private information private.

All of the new badges join an increasingly contemporary array of insignias ("computer expert," "inventor," "product designer" and "website designer" were all added in recent years), though the organization has not purged longstanding badges or themes.

The badges will be available to troops across the country, though local chapters can supplement them with additional patches and programs.

The expansion of science and technology-related badges and programs marks "a real transitional moment for the Girl Scouts," said Kathleen Denny, adjunct professor of sociology at Trinity University, who has researched the Girl Scouts.

"A historian writing about the Girl Scouts once said the organization was looking to develop a traditional, up-to-date woman," Denny said. "They've always had that progressive, feminist impulse - but never losing sight of the preparation for more traditional roles of wives and mothers."

The new badges could help young women see a place for themselves in the technology industry - a booming sector, but one known for its gender gap.

A study by research firm Frost & Sullivan found that women hold only 11 percent of information security jobs globally.

EducationHuman InterestLifestylePublic SafetyTechnology

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Girl Scouts step up with badges tied to STEM, cybersecurity - NewHampshire.com

Tasmanian devils have been decimated in recent years, this is what it takes to make sure they survive.

Jodie Elmer and Drew Lee checking on a trapped devil.

HEALTHY: A Save the Tasmanian Devil team check over a devil in the North East. Pictures: Neil Richardson

Save the Tasmanian Devil manager David Pemberton using a VHS tracker to locate released devils.

Road signs are part of a strategy to reduce devil deaths due to road traffic.

A sample of blood is taken from each devil to use for testing.

David Pemberton points out a devil den.

These virtual fences have proved effective at reducing devil deaths on the roads.

This is a chip tag reader, which scans devils on the way in to eat food left inside retrieving a range of information recorded on it.

Jodie Elmer loves her job on the Save the Tasmanian Devil team.

The VHS tracker emits beeps when near a devil.

David Pemberton explains the extensive range of devils, who love water and the beach.

These white traps are much less stressful for Tasmanian devils than traditional wire traps.

The yellow dots mark the movements of one of the released devils over a vast area.

This chip monitoring station has proved a great success.

Loading up ready to start the days work checking traps.

Microchipping a devil the team hasn't encountered before.

Weighing the devil (7 kilograms).

Traps ready for loading.

Collars like these are placed on the released devils initially to provide data on their movements.

Dr Pemberton explains how much devil populations have declined in the Wukalina/Mount William area.

The virtual fences are activated by headlights striking them.

"Osprey" ready for a check-up.

Taking blood and microchipping allows the team to keep track of devils.

Nice clean fangs.

Baby Tasmanian devils discovered in the pouch.

Open wide.

The program is vital to the continuation of devils in the wild.

With casuarina trees whipping in the wind above him David Pemberton pointedtowards a spread of grey-coloured animal scats, filled with little white shards of bone.

This is a Tasmanian Devil latrine, theSave the Tasmanian Devil manager explained.

It is where many devils come to deposit their scats, actinglike a visitor book of sorts letting devils know who else has come by in the night.

Its a key lesson or example of how socially conscious [devils] are, they want to know who else is around, Dr Pemberton said.

"Osprey" the Tasmanian devil getting a check-up. Pictures: Neil Richardson

Since the release of 33 devils in the North Eastin May there has been a team fromSave the Tasmanian Devil permanently stationed at the Parks and Wildlife house in Mount William National Park.

They have been monitoring the released devils daily using a range of technologies and methods, including GPS tracking, bush cameras, VHS tracking and setting traps.

As part of the relocation of the devils, which were from Maria Island, the team laid their scats at the latrines, to introduce them to the incumbent devils.

Since researchers first came to the Wukalina/Mount William area 20 years ago the population of devils has nose-dived to just 10 to 20 per cent of original numbers.

Where once the population of devils numberedaround 200, it now sits at around 20.

The rapid decline in the population is due to the rise of the deadly Devil Facial Tumor Disease, Dr Pembertonsaid.

Dr Pemberton said the disease is now a part of the devils ecology, and is something that needs to be managed into the future.

The Wild Devil Recovery Trial is working to ensure Tasmanian devils continue to survive outside captivity.

Teams are learning the bestmethods to translocate devils back to the wild.

Dr Pemberton said a wild population of devilsis important for two reasons: genetic diversity and ecosystem impact.

Ensuring genetic diversity in devils is vital in avoiding in-breeding and giving the animals the best chance of success.

We cant eradicate [DFTD], evolution might. To give evolution a chance you want genetic diversity and you want numbers, with those two in tandem then who knows what can evolve, Dr Pemberton said.

The other key work of the trial is to reduce the impacts the loss of devils has on the entire ecosystem.

The loss of such a large chunk of the devil population affects much morethan just the animals themselves, it has ripple effects right down the chain.

Such an example is the brush-tailed possum, a favourite food of devils, which has seen population booms following devil decline.

Where once possums in the open werevulnerable to attack, Dr Pemberton said in recent times he has gone into a paddock and seen a possum on every fence post.

The simplest way to treatthat conundrum and that problem is to get [devil] numbers back up in the wild and let devils do what theyre designed to do.

The post-release monitoring of the devils has shown they are settling in well.

Each time devils are released, the team gathers important information about whichmethods secure the best results, and this has paid off in the most recent release.

White cylindrical traps are loaded on the back of a ute, the final preparations for the team heading out to check the monitoring traps.

With the slamming of doors and the growl of an engine they are off to see if they caught any devils overnight.

Just an hour later the call comes through, theyve got a devil at Cape Portland, 45 minutes away.

Tasmanian devils have an extensive range, they can travel up to 20 kilometres in a night, and tracking has shown many of the released devils have roamed far.

Just as people do, in their travels devils use roads as the most efficient means of getting from A to B, which puts them at risk of becoming road kill.

At key points along the road, small plastic boxes about the size of a glasses caseare fixed to posts. They arevirtual fences that emit a blue light and loud noise when car headlights land on them, warning devils about the oncoming traffic.

These have been overwhelmingly effective, with none of the recently released devils succumbing to roadkill so far.

At Cape Portland wildlife biologist Drew Lee workedwith Jodie Elmer to carefully transfer the caught devil into a brown hessian bag.

Mr Lee said they use the white tubular traps as they are less stressful for the animals than traditional wire traps.

The white traps are less stressful for devils than traditional wire traps.

They found devils in wire traps would try to bite their way out, often causing damage and even losing their teeth.

In contrast, devils are usually curled up asleep in the end of the modern traps, he said.

Mr Lee attacheda set of scales to the hessian bag, lifting it devil and all into the air.

Seven point zero kilograms, he read to Mrs Elmer who was takingnotes on a clipboard.

Sitting down Mr Lee placedthe bag on his lap, opening it just enough to reveal the top of the devils head.

It was a new devil to the team, not one they have released or trapped before. Thats exciting.

Mr Lee then took a blood sample for testing while he explained, The only way we can pick up a tumor is when we see it.

As DFTD doesnt ignite an immune response in the devilsthey are not able to test for this in the blood, making early detection difficult.

A microchip was then attached to the devil, so researchers know when they come across it again.

Next a pair of calipers were used to measure the devils head width, whichreveal its sex and age.

A check over of Osprey shows a devil in good health.

The prognosis is a one-year-old female.

Pulling her snout out of the bag a check of her teeth revealedan impressive set of ivory fangs bedded in pink gums.

Mr Lee then flippedher over, her spiky black tail poking out of the bag, and checkedher pouch for babies.

One, two, threefour, he countedout as he spottedthe little pink young.

Three little pouch young are discovered in Osprey's pouch.

Devils are able to reach sexual maturity in their first year, and their ability to breed while still so young is helping the species continue.

[Tasmanian devils] arepersisting ... they are tough and tenacious and they are breeding young and that's what's making this happen, Dr Pemberton said.

DFTDkills them, but some of the mums weantheir young before they die and those young breed.

Because they can breed young they are surviving in the wild.

All that was left was to name the young mum, theyre running with the theme of birds.

Osprey.

Devil populations have plummeted, here Save the Tasmanian Devil manager David Pemberton points out a devil den.

The check-up was a success; a young female devil with four babies (the maximum a devil can support) who was in excellent health.

Because theres such a surplus of food its a great place to be a devil out here, Mr Lee said.

Kneeling, Mr Lee openedthe bag. Osprey tooka few tentative steps out of the hessian sack before making a break for it.

Running into the bush, she was gone.

While the rise of DFTD has had a significant impact on Tasmanian devil populations, the evidence is they continue to persist.

This can in large part be credited to the work of an international team, who all work to improve our understanding of the disease, develop vaccines and create insurance populations.

People like the very dedicated Save the Tasmanian Devil team, who get up at 5am in the dark and cold to translocate devils to a new home and then spend weeks tirelessly monitoring their progress.

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Fighting for the Tasmanian devil: photos, video - Ararat Advertiser