The all-organic pop-up shop features organic cotton T-shirts and baby clothes, organic wool sweaters and socks, organic sheets and blankets, even organic mattresses. "Live Organic from Farm to Home" is connecting the dots between that organic T-shirt or sweater and the organic cotton farmer and the organic sheep raiser; between the organic mattress factory or an organic fabric dyeing factory and the downstream impact on our water and soil.

"At Timberland, we hold ourselves accountable for what goes into our products as well as how they're made, and we're constantly seeking innovative solutions to reduce their environmental impact," said Colleen Vien, Sustainability Director for outdoor lifestyle brand Timberland, one of the event's sponsors. "Conventionally grown cotton uses more insecticides and requires significantly more water than organically grown cotton. As such, Timberland has had a longstanding goal of increasing our use of organic cotton year over year."

Kicking off #LiveOrganic was a VIP reception on Thursday evening. Media guests met and mingled with the leaders and pioneers of the organic textile industry, talked with the farmers who are committing their lives to growing organic fiber in the most environmentally sustainable way, and heard the unique stories of each of the sponsoring brands.

"We've worked diligently for 23 years to maintain our integrity as environmental stewards and to educate the consumer on the importance of using U.S. grown organic cotton. You care about what you put into your body you should care about what you put on your body as well," said Jimmy Wedel, an organic cotton farmer from the Texas High Plains and President of the Texas Organic Cotton Marketing Cooperative (TOCMC) in Lubbock, Texas. TOCMC farmer members produce most of the organic cotton grown in this country. Wedel is a third generation farmer who farms over 4,000 areas, almost all certified organic.

Living an organic lifestyle

Today's consumer is embracing an organic food-to-fashion-and-home lifestyle. Organic food is now found in over 80 percent of American kitchens. And the American organic textile market is now a billion-dollar-plus market, posting robust double-digit growth in recent years. Organic fiber is in demand for everything from organic bath towels to baby clothes to high fashion. Consumers are increasingly looking for clean products without toxins, unnecessary ingredients, and which are produced in ways that do not harm the environment.

"Coyuchi knows how important organic fiber and sustainable practices are to our customers, so we've gone one step further," said Eileen Mockus, CEO of Coyuchi organic bedding company. "To extend the longevity of our organic cotton bedding and towels and ensure it won't end up in a landfill, we're created our new circular subscription service which lets you send back your linens and allows us to renew, upcycle, or recycle them."

More than 13 million tons of textiles end up in U.S. landfills, according to findings by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. But long before textiles reach the landfill, the production of conventional fiber is compromising the environment. Over thirty eight million pounds of pesticides were used on conventional cotton in 2014 in the U.S., making cotton third in terms of pesticide use after only corn and soybeans, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Sponsors of #LiveOrganic inspired the enthusiastic gathering on Thursday when they shared the mission of their companies and the passion for a clean world that created and continues to create their widening array of products.

"Responsible sourcing through environmentally and socially conscious practices, along with a commitment to transparency and community are important to everyone at Ramblers Way," said Nick Armentrout, Supply Chain Manager for sustainable and organic clothing maker Ramblers Way. "When Ramblers Way sources organic wool, we use the Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) to help us assure environmental and social standards are followed from farm to fabric to fashion."

"From the field to your home, the Grund organic cotton bath rugs offer a chemical free option no harmful pesticides and chemicals during production, harvesting and processing," said Michael Twer, Vice President, Sales/General Manager for organic bath maker Grund. "Each rug to towel is responsibly made to the absolute highest social and environmental standards, and the cotton used can be traced to the very community of cultivation."

"Naturepedic mattresses do not contain any polyurethane foam, formaldehyde, pesticides, GMOs, vinyl or any questionable materials," said Chris Robinson, Vice President, Sales & Marketing for Naturepedic organic mattress company. "Our mattresses are made without harmful chemicals of any kind, including flame retardant chemicals, or chemical flame barriers."

While the pop-up focuses on what we put on our body, the dots also connect organic cotton production to healthy organic food. Two-thirds of the harvested organic cotton crop is used in food and cattle feed. Organic cottonseed has been found to be a source of high nutrition, protein and energy in organic animal feed rations, and to boost milk production and butterfat in dairy cows. Cottonseed oil is one of the most widely used cooking oils, and organic cottonseed oil offers consumers the huge benefits of being produced from crops grown without pesticides and chemicals.

"Our company was founded on the belief that organic makes a difference for families, farming communities and the environment," said Mike Ferry, president of Horizon Organic dairy company. "That commitment remains true today, so we are proud to support organic throughout the supply chain, in the dairy industry and beyond, and are happy tosponsor the OTA's first Live Organic from Farm to Home Pop-Up Shop."

A healthier world for all, from farm to home

OTA's Organic Fiber Council was convened in 2015 with the goal to unite the organic fiber sector with a cohesive voice, identify the challenges and opportunities in the organic fiber sector, educate the consumer about the importance of organic fiber, and help move the sector forward.

"OTA and the Organic Fiber Council are thrilled to be telling the story of organic fiber and textiles, and to be showing the public in such a fun and engaging way why it truly makes a difference when you choose organic in every part of your life. And we're honored to be working with these industry pioneers they're creating a healthier world for all of us," said Gwendolyn Wyard, Vice President of Regulatory and Technical Affairs for OTA and staff coordinator for the Organic Fiber Council.

The #LiveOrganic pop-up can be visited on May 5 and 6 from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. at Treehaus MiMA, 470 West 42nd St.

The sponsoring organic fiber brands are Coyuchi, Dhana, Gallant, Grund, MetaWear, Naturepedic, Organic Cotton Plus, prAna, Ramblers Way, Spiritex, Synergy, Syona Home and Timberland. Sponsoring brands, farmers, organizations and retailers are Control Union, Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS), Horizon Organic, OneCert, Oregon Tilth, MOM's Organic Market, Organic Valley, Texas Organic Cotton Marketing Cooperative, Textile Exchange, Whole Foods, and the Richard D. Siegel Law Offices.

The Organic Trade Association (OTA) is the membership-based business association for organic agriculture and products in North America. OTA is the leading voice for the organic trade in the United States, representing over 9,500 organic businesses across 50 states. Its members include growers, shippers, processors, certifiers, farmers' associations, distributors, importers, exporters, consultants, retailers and others. OTA's Board of Directors is democratically elected by its members. OTA's mission is to promote and protect ORGANIC with a unifying voice that serves and engages its diverse members from farm to marketplace.

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/beyond-food-organic-lifestyle-brands-star-in-pop-up-event-in-new-york-300452068.html

SOURCE Organic Trade Association

http://www.ota.com

Originally posted here:

Beyond food: Organic lifestyle brands star in pop-up event in New York - PR Newswire (press release)

Thursday, May 04, 2017 2:57 p.m. EDT

By Ronnie Cohen

(Reuters Health) - In a college course that included meditation training, women were more likely than men to report that the practice improved their mood, a small study found.

Meditation is an increasingly popular form of mental training on college campuses and off. Research suggests it may reduce blood pressure, gastrointestinal symptoms, anxiety, depression and insomnia, according to the National Institutes of Health (http://bit.ly/1BQ4I9l).

Practitioners direct and redirect their attention to the present moment, often by focusing on their breath.

At the end of a mindfulness meditation course at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, female students, on average, rated their so-called negative affect significantly lower than at the beginning, indicating better mood. But among male students, the only difference was a very slight increase in their negative affect, possibly indicating a worsened mood, researchers reported in Frontiers in Psychology.

Senior author Willoughby Britton cautioned against concluding that men fail to reap rewards from meditation, though. Instead, the Brown professor of psychiatry and human behavior said the gender differences could reflect variations in the ways men and women tend to regulate their emotions.

There has just been too much data - both anecdotal and empirical - suggesting that many men benefit from mindfulness, she said in an email.

Dr. Madhav Goyal, who practices meditation and studies it as a professor at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, pointed to a group dedicated to practicing meditation.

Most of the monks who meditate are men, he said in a phone interview.

Previous research validates the benefits of meditation for men and women, Britton and Goyal both said.

Britton and her colleagues analyzed self-reported surveys from 77 students, 41 men and 36 women who completed 12 weeks of seminars and meditation labs between 2008 and 2011. The labs met three times a week and included about 30 minutes of Buddhist or Daoist meditation practices.

At the end of the course, women self-reported greater gains in their ability to observe their feelings and describe them as well as their ability not to judge or react, the study found.

Men also showed improvements in self-compassion as well as in not judging and not reacting. But they reported an average 3.7 percent increase in their negative affect score, compared to women who showed an average 11.6 percent drop in negative affect.

Though the mens average negative affect score went up slightly, some of the men probably improved their mood, while the training probably did not lift the spirits of all the women, Britton said.

We may need to pay more attention to issues of diversity and individual differences that could impact how different people respond to mindfulness interventions, she said. The differences we found may not be about gender per se but about different emotion-regulation strategies or goals.

When faced with challenging feelings, women tend to ruminate, and men tend to find ways to be distracted, Britton said.

While facing ones difficulties and feeling ones emotions may seem to be universally beneficial, it does not take into account that there may be different cultural expectations for men and women around emotionality, she said.

Men and women may process meditation skills differently, said Goyal, who was not involved in the study. That said, the point of meditation is not to reduce negative affect, though people do use the practice to that end.

The point of meditation is to learn to be in the present moment and through this practice over time, one gains greater understanding of themselves, Goyal said.

Sydney Tan, a Brown senior who took the class as a sophomore and served as a discussion leader this year, has seen many men who benefited from the class and some women who struggled with it.

I actually had more women talk to me about the difficulties of sitting for a long time and being still, she said in a phone interview.

Its more complex than just the duality of this is the womens experience, and this is the mens experience, she said. Its more nuanced.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2ozb4tj Frontiers in Psychology, April 20, 2017.

(In paragraph 19, corrects name to Tan, from Tam)

The rest is here:

Mindfulness meditation may work differently for men and women ... - WHTC

Forbes

Mindfulness Meditation May Help Reduce Mind-Wandering In People With Anxiety Forbes Several years ago a now famous Harvard study found that people's minds wander about 50% of the timethat is, if you stop a person randomly (this particular study used an iPhone app to do it) and ask them what they're thinking about, half the time it ...

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Mindfulness Meditation May Help Reduce Mind-Wandering In People With Anxiety - Forbes

I used to be like you. I knew meditation could help reduce stress, curb anxiety, and help me sleep. But I never sat down and actually did it. Now that Ive followed my breath every day for 734 days in a row, meditation has become a huge part of my life. And it has such obvious, noticeable benefits that I can't imagine my life without it.

I began meditating because Headspace, the app I use (and for whom I occasionally write meditation articles, full disclosure), hooked me in. It seemed like a game: I didnt want to lose my streak of meditating nine or 10 days in a row. While the game-ification of working out might be garbage, it turned meditation into something that taught me skills as I achieved higher levels of meditation (it didn't hurt that, after each session, I felt fantastic). Headspace isn't the only option, either: Apps like Calm and ABC newsman Dan Harris 10% Happierare great, too.

When I told my friends I was getting into meditating, I was teased. Was I going to become a zen master, start wearing beads, and put my hair in a man bun? (Answers: Probably not, nope, and Im balding.) Id explain calmly, because I'm so chill now that I was just sitting down and closing my eyes for 10 minutes a day. Almost every time, the friend admitted that a 10-minute shutdown would probably help them, too.

Yes, meditation has helped me become a calmer person. But it also had unexpected benefits. I don't take my thoughts as emotions as seriously anymore. And, maybe most usefully, I'm better at focusing on the present. The form of meditation I practice most often requires that I pay attention to my breath. Sure, I get lost in thought and drift off. But I got better at realizing that when I had a thought, I could acknowledge it and go back to breathing. Now, instead of getting lost in unhelpful thoughts, Im focused on the task at hand. This makes me more productive and more appreciative of whats actually happening around me, rather than worrying about the future or dwelling on the past.

But it took some extra effort to turn meditation into a consistent practice and not just something I do when Im stressed. After all, studies have shown clear benefits to the brain. Here are the tricks that worked for me:

Ill tell you a secret. After a few months, I stopped needing those reminders. I meditate because its a part of my day, like brushing my teeth. I never forget to brush my teeth, so why would I forget to meditate? And since Im guessing you brush your teeth every day, I bet you can take the time to do this, too.

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What I Learned from Meditating Every Day for Two Years - Men's Journal

CONWAY Ellen Schwindt will be offering a Music as Meditation event on Sunday, May 7, at 5 p.m. at Christ Episcopal Church on the corner of Pine and Main Streets in North Conway.

Schwindt is holding the idea of emergence in her mind as she practices for meditation this time. She will play Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata," an adagio by Haydn, some new violin music and some improvisations from her recently performed double concerto. Come expecting resonance and who knows what will emerge.

Schwindt began Music as Meditation as a way for her to share her newest music with listeners and to share a meditative spirit with attenders. The series has blossomed into an opportunity for community musicians to share music with each other. Free admission.

Music as Meditation takes place on first Sundays of each month.

Call (603) 447-2898 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for more information.

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Ellen Schwindt to offer Music as Meditation May 7 - Conway Daily Sun

Hosts: Dr. Gregory Jenkins & Alicia Dukov

Click Here to Listen!

Right Click Here to Download!

On this episode of My Doc & Dukov, Alicia and Gregory reflect on meditation and gaining serenity from your core outward.

chakra (in Indian thought) each of the centers of spiritual power in the human body, usually considered to be seven in number.

Literally our core is like a USB cable that were plugging in to the source. Alicia Dukov

How do you strengthen the centers in your brain to lower stress?

You wanna work both sides of the brain with things you havent done before. Dr. Jenkins

=================================================================================================

Dr Gregory Jenkins has continued to provide the Santa Clarita Valley with his high level of medical service, working as medical staff leader at Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital and currently sits on the Medical Staff Executive Board and is dedicated to improving the care and quality of Santa Clarita hospitals.

Dr Jenkins believes that all doctors should work to help raise the standards and quality of their local hospitals and he makes sure to be an example of this and started his own private practice 26 years ago where Dr. Jenkins is able to continue to work to provide Santa Clarita residents with high level health care that is always improving and growing in scope and scale.

Gregory Jenkins MD has been recognized by voters in local publication as one of the best in Family Practice, Best Internal Medicine and Best Urgent Care. As a founding partner of his previous practice in 1988, Dr. Jenkins philosophy and commitment to concerned, excellent medical careconveniently available everyday and supported by staff who have served patients with superior customer service for 24 years.

Alicia Dukov is a Doctoral student of Clinical Psychology. As a Marriage and Family Therapist Intern on the brink of licensure, Alicia has spent her past 5 years of clinical internship experience predominantly treating Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

She is currently formulating her doctoral dissertation on her clinical case studies and the use of Left-Right Brain treatment interventions to address the growing need amidst this population for new, innovative techniques.

Alicia is also the founder of letitluce.com, a growing online community dedicated to empowering men and women of all generations to let loose the light of their authentic selves and gain awareness of self love. With the intention to bring people home inside, the movement offers meditations, tutorials and articles sparking awareness on the human journey toward wholeness and the great potential that lay inherent within us all.

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Hosts: Dr. Gregory Jenkins & Alicia Dukov - KHTS Radio

It started with a tense, stressed-out dog. The owner of that dog, Daisy, is singer-songwritergnash, best known for the hit, i hate you, i love you. After using medication and consulting with an animal behaviorist, gnash decided to a compose musicto sooth his stressed canine.

Gnashs initial research pointed to reggae as the most calming music for dogs. Digging deeper, he found that certain musical elements, including simpler arrangements and repetitions, provoked soothing responses in dogs.

That sparked a creative project that resulted in a really effective track. Seriously, try this with your anxious, hyper, or unhappy dog.

Crazy, right? Indeed, the effects on actual dogs is pretty remarkable.

Interestingly, gnash was setting out to solve a personal problem with his own dog. But what resulted is a solution that may end up working for millions of dogs. Even the happy ones.

Actually, heres a video that shows the creative process and journey by gnash.

Of course, Gnashs song for daisy has been doing the trick for Daisy. But its also being heavily used for byNo-Kill Los Angeles, a non-kill shelter.

The connection with No-Kill comes from Daisy herself, who is also a rescue. And like many rescues, Daisy exhibits signs of previous stress. We want to ensure that dogs, when they are awaiting adoption, have as good an experience as they can, said Professor Neil Evans, Professor of Integrative Physiology at Glasgows Institute of Biodiversity Animal Health and Comparative Medicine.

Most people adopting from a shelter want a dog that is relaxed and interacts positively. Music can help dogs become less stressed and show their true personality.

Evans also pointed to reggae as a relaxing favorite for dogs. But thats not all. The biggest effects come from soft rock and reggae, Evans noted. Motown, pop and classical music produce lesser effects.

Gnashs release could broaden awareness forthe field of psycho-acoustic therapy for animals. Indeed, music therapy is a powerful and calming force, for dogs and humans alike. It was a powerful experience to watch an entire room full of dogs, and my own rescue dog Daisy, react to this song, said gnash. It was incredible to be able to create music that transcends human emotion and has the ability to connect with these animals on a deeper level.

Accordingly, the next move is to spread this to other rescue shelters. I hope this video and song helps other rescue pet owners comfort their furry friends the same way it did mine.

Calming music for dogs

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The Most Calming Music for Dogs Ever Created - Digital Music News - Digital Music News

The High Plains dairy complex reflects the new scale of the U.S. organic industry: it is big.

Stretching across miles of pastures and feedlots north of Greeley, Colorado, the complex is home to more than 15,000 cows, making it more than a hundred times the size of a typical organic herd. It is the main facility of Aurora Organic Dairy, a company that produces enough milk to supply the house brands of Walmart, Costco, and other major retailers.

"We take great pride in our commitment to organic, and in our ability to meet the rigorous criteria of the USDA organic regulations," Aurora advertises.

But a closer look at Aurora and other large operations highlights critical weaknesses in the unorthodox inspection system that the USDA uses to ensure that "organic" food is really organic.

The U.S. organic market now counts more than $40 billion in annual sales, and includes products imported from about 100 countries. To enforce the organic rules across this vast industry, the USDA allows farmers to hire and pay their own inspectors to certify them as "USDA Organic." Industry defenders say enforcement is robust.

But the problems at an entity like Aurora suggests that even large, prominent players can fall short of standards without detection.

With milk, the critical issue is grazing. Organic dairies are required to allow the cows to graze daily throughout the growing season - that is, the cows are supposed to be grass-fed, not confined to barns and feed lots. This method is considered more natural and alters the constituents of the cows milk in ways consumers deem beneficial.

But during visits by The Washington Post to Aurora's High Plains complex across nine days last year, signs of grazing were sparse, at best. Aurora said their animals were out on pasture day and night but during most Post visits the number of cows seen on pasture numbered in the hundreds. A high-resolution satellite photo taken in mid-July by Digital Globe, a space imagery vendor, shows a typical situation - only a few hundred on pasture. At no point were there any more than 10 percent of the herd out.

In response, Aurora spokesperson Sonja Tuitele dismissed the Post visits as anomalies and "drive-bys."

The milk produced also provides evidence that Aurora cows do not graze as required by organic rules. Testing conducted for the Post by Virginia Tech scientists shows that on a key indicator of grass-feeding, the Aurora milk matched conventional milk, not organic.

Finally, the Post contacted the inspectors who visited Aurora's High Plains dairy and certified it as "USDA Organic." Did their inspectors have evidence that the Aurora cows met the grazing requirement?

It turns out that they were poorly positioned to know.

The inspectors conducted the annual audit well after grazing season - in November. That means that during the annual audit, inspectors would not have seen whether the cows were grazing as required, a breach of USDA inspection policy.

"We would expect that inspectors are out there during the grazing season," said Miles McEvoy, chief of the National Organic Program at USDA. He said that the grazing requirement is "a critical compliance component of an organic livestock operation."

If organic farms violate organic rules, consumers are being misled and overcharged.

In the case of milk, consumers pay extra - often double - when the carton says "USDA Organic" in the belief they are getting something different. Organic dairy sales amounted to $6 billion last year in the U.S.

The failure to comply with organic standards also harms other farms, many of them small. Following the rules costs extra because grazing requires more land and because cows that dine on grass typically produce less milk.

Whether an organic dairy is grazing its herd is relatively easy to see, especially if roads criss-cross their pastures. It is more difficult, however, for outsiders to judge whether a dairy is following other organic rules - such as those regarding hormones and organic feed.

Ten years ago, after a complaint from a consumer group, Aurora faced USDA allegations that it breached organic rules regarding grazing and other issues. The USDA charged that Aurora was in "willful violation" of organic standards, but a settlement agreement allowed them to continue to operate.

There have been no charges since then.

But some small organic dairy farmers say that the new, large organic dairies that have popped up in the Southwest are violating standards.

On one-day visits to several large organic operations in Texas and New Mexico, a Post reporter saw similarly empty pastures. It was difficult to determine where their milk winds up on retail shelves, however, and so no chemical tests were pursued.

"About half of the organic milk sold in the U.S. is coming from very large factory farms that have no intention of living up to organic principles," said Mark Kastel of the Cornucopia Institute, a Wisconsin-based nonprofit group representing thousand of organic farmers. "Thousands of small organic farmers across the United States depend on the USDA organic system working. Unfortunately, right now, it's not working for small farmers, or for consumers."

Until then, convincing customers that a product was "organic" could be a murky proposition - everyone relied on informal definitions of organic and informal measures of trust.

The "USDA Organic" seal changed that, standardizing concepts and setting rules. It has proven a boon: Organic food sales rose from about $6 billion annually in 2000 to $40 billion in 2015, according to the Organic Trade Association.

The integrity of the new label, however, rested on an unusual system of inspections.

Under organic rules, the USDA typically doesn't inspect farms. Instead, farmers hire their own inspectors from lists of private companies and other organizations licensed by the USDA. An inspector makes an annual visit and it is arranged days or weeks in advance. Only five percent of inspections are expected to be done unannounced.

To keep the inspectors honest, the USDA reviews the records of each inspection outfit about every 2 1/2 years.

This inspection system saves the USDA money because it doesn't have to hire many inspectors. The compliance and enforcement team at the USDA National Organic Program has nine people - one for every $4 billion in sales.

McEvoy acknowledged that having farmers choose their inspection companies is "fairly unique" within the USDA, but he noted that rising sales show that consumers "trust the organic label."

Others have doubts. Cornucopia publishes its own scorecard of organic dairies because, its officials say, the USDA has failed to weed out the bad.

"Consumers look at that cartoon label on organic milk with a happy cow on green pasture with a red barn, but that's not always the reality," said Katherine Paul of the Organic Consumers Association. "What we've said all along is that organic milks are not created equal, and your results show that."

At the other end of the scale from Aurora are many small dairies who have come to rely on the USDA Organic label, investing in the opportunity it respresents, believing in its promise.

Several years ago, for example, Bobby Prigel, a fourth-generation dairyman with a 300-acre spread of rolling pastures and white plank fences in northern Maryland, made the switch.

With milk prices declining and feed costs rising, Prigel figured he had to try something different. The herd had been in the barn area for decades, munching feed. One day he shooed them out to pasture.

Here's the funny thing, he said: his cows seemed confused. Though cows are natural grazers - like the wild aurochs they descended from -the grazing instincts of his cows had been dulled.

"They didn't really know how to graze at first - they didn't know how to bend down and get grass with their tongues," Prigel said one day during a break on his farm. Nor were they accustomed to walking much.

Prigel, meanwhile, had to make economic adjustments.

Producing milk according to the "USDA Organic" standard costs more.

To begin with, organic cows cannot be given hormones to stimulate milk production. And any feed or pasture for the cows must be organic - that is, grown without most synthetic pesticides.

Second, to be considered organic, cows must obtain a certain percentage of their diet from grazing. Prigel is a purist and feeds his herd entirely from the pasture, but most organic dairies supplement the pasture with corn, soybeans or other grains, even during the grazing season.

The grazing requirement makes milk more costly to produce because it requires a certain amount of pasture land and because a grazing cow produces less milk than one eating a grain diet optimized for milk production.

With grass-fed cows, "there's just not nearly as much milk," Prigel said.

On the upside, a farmer can sell certified organic milk for almost double the price of conventional, and there are other benefits, too: The milk is measurably different, and according to the USDA, it improves cow health and reduces the environmental impacts of agriculture. Moreover, because grazing is natural cow behavior, some believe it is more humane.

"Cows aren't supposed to stay inside and eat corn," Prigel said.

The grazing season typically runs from spring until the first frost and to evaluate the Aurora operation, The Post visited the High Plains dairy complex nine days during that period - three in August, three in September and three in October. Roads criss-cross the farm allowing a view of their fields. In addition, in July, a satellite for Digital Globe snapped a high-resolution photo of the area.

Each of those ten days, only a very small portion of the 15,000 cow herd was seen on pastures. Many more were seen in feed lots.

In response, Aurora officials said that during the grazing season the cows are on pasture both day and night. Maybe, they said, on those days, the cows were elsewhere, being milked or otherwise tended.

However, the Post visited at different times of the day, sometimes twice in a day. Because the cows are milked in shifts, thousands of them should be out at any given time, farmers said.

Aurora did say that they stopped their grazing season on September 30, so it's not surprising no cows were seen on the three days in October. It's unclear why Aurora decided to end their grazing season then, though, because the first frost was not until October 20 in that area, according to weather records.

To see whether a lack of grazing was apparent in the milk, the Post turned to Virginia Tech dairy science professor Benjamin Corl, who analyzed eight different milks, some organic, some not, and all bottled during grazing season. He performed the tests without knowing the brand names of the samples.

Grass-fed cows tend to produce milk with elevated levels of two types of fat. One of the distinguishing fats is conjugated linoleic acid or CLA, which some regard as the clearest indicator of grass-feeding. The other is an "Omega-3" fat known as alpha-linolenic acid. Both have been associated with health benefits in humans, although the amounts found in milk are relatively small.

Another type of fat - linoleic acid, an Omega-6 fat - tends to be sparser in milks that are pasture fed.

The results: Prigel's milk stood out for its grassy origins. It ranked at the top for CLA and was a distant last for linoleic acid.

The milk from Snowville Creamery, another brand that boasts of pasture-grazing, ranked second for CLA.

"Those two milks stood out like sore thumbs," said Corl, who "You can tell those animals have been on grass."

At the other extreme were the conventional milks - from 365 and Lucerne. They ranked, as expected, at the bottom for the fats associated with grass feeding and at the top for the fat associated with conventional feeding.

Large organic brands - Horizon and Organic Valley - ranked roughly in between the extremes for two of the three measures.

As for Aurora's milk, despite its the "USDA Organic" label, it was very close to conventional milk. On two of the three measures, CLA and linoleic acid, they were pretty much the same as conventional milk. On the third measure, alpha-linolenic acid, Aurora ranked slightly better than the conventional milks, but below the other USDA organic samples.

The milk tested by the Post had been processed at Aurora's Colorado processing plant, according to the number stamped on the bottle. More than 80 percent of the milk that Aurora sells is produced at its own farms; it also purchases milk from other dairies, according to the company.

It wasn't the first time that Aurora milk has tested poorly for signs of grass feeding. In 2008, the Milkweed, a dairy economics report compared Aurora's milk to other organic milks. Of 10 organic milks ranked for the fats assocated with grass feeding, Aurora's was last.

"There has been an obvious failure by USDA to enforce the organic pasture standard," Pete Hardin, editor and publisher of The Milkweed, said in a recent interview.

Tuitele, the Aurora spokesperson, dismissed the milk tests and declined to comment in depth on them because they were "isolated" and because there are "so many variables that are unknown."

She suggested that Aurora milk may have tested differently, not because of a lack of grazing, but because Colorado pastures may have different plants. But milks from the Rocky Mountain region and those from the Mid-Atlantic vary a little, according to a 2013 study of organic milks published in PlosOne - not enough to explain the gap in the results.

Aurora's inspectors also stood by Aurora's milk.

While most inspectors are private organizations, Aurora hired staff from the Colorado Department of Agriculture, which it pays about $13,000 annually.

When asked about the Aurora inspection being done after grazing season, an official with the Colorado Department of Agriculture initially suggested that other audits may have been conducted at High Plains last year. But Tuitele later wrote that the November visit was the only audit of its High Plains complex last year.

Aurora and their inspectors have been under scrutiny before.

About 10 years ago, the USDA launched an investigation into Aurora's organic practices.

By April 2007, USDA said it identified "willful violations" of organic rules by the dairy. Aurora had, among other things, for three years "failed to provide a total feed ration that included pasture."

The USDA proposed to revoke Aurora's organic status.

It also also proposed to suspend the Colorado Department of Agriculture from certifying organic livestock "due to the nature and extent of these violations."

Four months later, though, the case was resolved.

Aurora pledged to make improvements and was allowed to continue operating. It issued a press release saying that the USDA had "dismissed the complaints...following an extensive review" - a finding contrary to the view at USDA, which issued a press release saying "the complaint was not dismissed." It noted that the consent agreement called for Aurora to "make major changes."

For its part, the Colorado Department of Agriculture agreed "to make several changes in its operation," including hiring more personnel and staff training, according to a USDA press release.

Aurora also settled a related class action lawsuit for $7.5 million in 2012, and said it did not admit wrongdoing.

Since then, Aurora, already gargantuan, has continued to grow. In recent months it has been considering an expansion in Columbia, Mo., that may rely on milk from as many as 30,000 cows, according to local media coverage.

The growth of mega-dairies that skimp on grazing and produce cheap milk appears to be crushing many small dairies, some analysts said.

"The mom and pop - the smaller traditional family dairies - who are following the pasture rules are seeing their prices erode," said Hardin, The Milkweed editor. "It is creating a heck of a mess."

Will Costello contributed to this report.

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Why your milk may not be truly organic - The Hendricks County Flyer

At some point last year, I started to feel like I was losing my mind. It wasn't something I could pinpoint, exactly; no one event that had pushed me beyond my capacity to rationally think or feel. I just became gradually, incrementally aware that everything was more difficult; that sometimes, I felt as if I could barely function at all.

I knew I wasn't the only one to feel this way. For many Americans, 2016 represented the disintegration of the foundational narratives, ideologies, and institutions that had formed many of our ideas of who we (and the country) were. Each week brought news of police shootings, financial scandals, state surveillance breaches, and international terrorist attacks. Each month broke its previous temperature record, signaling the impacts of climate change as fracking and domestic fossil fuel production increased. And after sixteen surreal months of steadily escalating, mind-warping coverage of the presidential election, the ticket had been narrowed down to two rich white people, both of whom were embroiled in endless controversies, and both of whom had thoroughly demonstrated their dedication to money above human beings or the planet.

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Reading the news made me feel awful, though I noticed that I had developed a compulsive addiction to checking content streams; I would find myself scrolling through social media feeds with little to no recollection of how long I had been there. And while it was clear that the internet was only feeding my feelings of fear and despair, there seemed to be a startling lack of other places to go. The subject of politics had swollen to encompass everything about the contemporary human experience and was absolutely inescapable across virtually all forms of media. As The Atlantic put it: "Donald Trump so permeates the collective consciousness of the country that it is hard to imagine now living in a world without him."

What was the world like before? I felt like I could barely remember. In this world, it seemed clear that emotional distress was a near-universal condition. How did we end up here? I felt there was something inside myself that was no longer accessible; a way of being, maybe, or the simple ability to sit calmly for a few minutes, feeling intuitively that the world would last.

On the night of November 8th, watching the election results come inthe electoral map reddening, the PBS news correspondents in a kind of psychedelic disbelief alongside memy mind finally lost its footing. I signed up for a ten-day silent meditation course the next day, hoping that a severance from the world, however brief, would bring me a little clarity.

I arrived at the Dhamma Manda meditation center in Kelseyville, California two months later, with little idea of what to expect and only a vague idea of what meditation even was. While I intuitively felt it had something to do with clearing the mind, I had no understanding of the techniques involved and an enormous amount of skepticism that my mind could be cleared at all, or ever again. In the time since the election, the country's (my) panic and outrage had only intensified; if my mind felt frayed before, the 24-hour news cycle had since obliterated it.

Vipassana, which means to see things as they really are, is a traditional meditation technique from India offered entirely by donation at Dhamma centers throughout the world. As our course facilitators explained that evening, we would train ourselves to literally see things as they are, not as we wished they were, which would allow us to cultivate acceptance and compassion. (This sounded particularly handy, as many of my thoughts at that point seemed to rotate around the idea of how the world should be.) We were to commit to complete silence, abstinence, and sobriety for ten days, learning to focus our attention only on the subtle sensations of the body and allow our deeper thoughts and feelings to resurface naturally.

I glanced around at the other women seated around me, listening attentively from their folding chairs. We would not speak to each other, or even make eye contact, for a week and a half. We would not read, write, or use a phone or computer. By the time we reentered the world, we would have a new commander-in-chief. We were all there, ostensibly, to experience something that we could not otherwise experience without leaving our jobs, lives, and families for over a week. I scanned their faces, wondering if they felt as fucked up as I did.

The daily Vipassana schedule is rigorous, and we were to follow it as strictly as possible. The morning bell rang at 4 AM and meditation commenced shortly thereafter. Meals were served at the same time, twice a day, with little variation on the menu. For dinner: tea and fruit, only. There were a couple hours allotted to resting, and a little path up in the hills behind the bunk houses where we could take walks during breaks. The rest of the day, nearly ten hours of it, was reserved for sitting in silence.

The course techniques are based on the teachings of S.N. Goenka, who passed away in 2013. We received instruction from video recordings of him each night. These discourses covered many topics, ranging from addiction and anger to relationships and non-attachment. It became clear that, above all, the main task set before us was to look squarely at the state of our reality without judgment or reaction. Observation without reaction, Goenka explained, was the real key to discovering lasting happiness and peace.

Almost immediately, however, I learned that reactions are the predominant feature of the contemporary mind. Each day, hundreds of times per day, we are presented with opportunities to have them. If we encounter something positive, we react with craving and desire; we want more of it. If we encounter something negative, we react with anger, hostility, or aversion. Either way, we develop an unhealthy relationship with something that we have no control over; if we do not receive more of the positive, or if we are forced to encounter the negative, we become miserable.

I also realized that the ways in which we interact and share information with each other only increases these opportunities for reaction. In fact, as we scroll through our content feeds, we are prompted to react: to like, share, ignore, report or reply. We register hundreds (thousands?) of emotional reactions each day, many of which go largely unprocessed. Imagine the range of micro-emotions you experience from a single social media session. In Vipassana meditation, they teach that these unprocessed reactions are stored in the subconscious mind and body, and as they accumulate it can become more and more difficult to understand how we really feel beneath it all.

During the first few days, I found I couldn't focus on my own breathing for more than a few seconds without encountering some of these unprocessed reactions. I relived my anxiety over the election, saw fragments of other people's racist or sexist Twitter arguments, and replayed troubling news segments in my head. I discovered that the name "Donald Trump" was seared into my brain. I saw it even when I closed my eyes, the way the outline of the sun will remain behind your lids even after you stop looking at it.

"Such a wild mind!" conceded the VHS likeness of Goenka one night, to my great relief. While this validated my experience, I felt my mind was too wildthat it had been electrocuted out of a positive thought-cycle by news headlines and streams of content that profited from my emotional exhaustion. Though I had initially sought out meditation to connect more deeply with myself, I felt like others were taking up the bulk of my mental space with their feelings, photos, opinions, and judgments. I feared that my own thoughts were buried forever beneath a sea of unprocessed digital content, one that would prevent me from ever achieving mental clarity again.

A week in, though, I began to get the hang of the technique. My mind became stronger and more able to focus, and I watched these stored images and traumas recede from my mind. Slowly and incrementally, I learned to clear away the debris and connect more deeply with my own thoughts and feelings. It was the most difficult work I've ever done; I encountered a lot of unprocessed emotion and faced some hard truths about who, where, and how I was. But as I went deeper, I felt much of my physical pain and anxiety disappear, I slept better, and for the first time in months I felt the stirrings of positivity: optimism, energy, creativity, hope. Most of all, I felt compassion for myself, and for everyone struggling to exist in this strange time, and beneath all that messaging.

Even before attending a Vipassana course, I'd been concerned about the effect that media was having on my ability to control my emotions and focus my thoughts. It's been shown that too much screen time leads to gray matter atrophythe literal shrinking of areas of the brain that handle emotional control and cognitive processingand at a time when many journalism outlets rely on sensational headlines to stay relevant, seeking out information on the internet can be an emotionally exhausting affair. I found that meditation can not only rebuild the parts of the brain that are deteriorated by screen addiction, it can also provide the necessary space to process many of the media images that would otherwise be stuck in our subconscious, blocking access to our own intuition and creativity.

While many Americans are deeply affected by troubling news reports, social media arguments, and clickbait journalism, the stress and anxiety of these messages continue to affect women, people of color, and the LGBT community disproportionately. Even if we're not directly impacted by the violence that takes place every day, reports of (and comments about) ICE raids, sexual assault, racially-motivated police shootings, and travel bans can all trigger past emotional traumas and cause members of these communities to fear for their safety.

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Amy Keo, a first-generation Cambodian-American living in Portland, Oregon, started a bi-weekly meditation group called Radical Meditation for People of Color to provide a space for marginalized people to work through their feelings. She told me that at their first gathering over a year ago, she received a hugely positive response. Over thirty people from various communities, backgrounds, and orientations came together to meditate. "We all started crying at the immediate sight of one another," she recalled. "For many people, just the sight of there being thirty people of color in one room was so powerful."

Keo's aim is to reclaim the many conversations surrounding identity, trauma, and healing around communities of color. A different facilitator directs the meditation each week; sometimes the group talks, other times they sit in silence. Keo acknowledges that it can be difficult work. The process of re-engaging with stored trauma through meditation can trigger a lot of intense emotion. Still, she sees and feels the positive benefits working within the group. "A lot of folks of color are ready to start doing their healing work," she said. "It takes too much of a toll to live in a society that dehumanizes them and threatens their bodies."

Black Women for Wellness, a Los Angeles-based organization dedicated to providing healing resources for black women and girls, is also incorporating meditation into their community empowerment sessions. For many black women, Iyatunde Folayan, a representative from Black Women for Wellness, told me, even acknowledging the need for help can be a difficult cultural hurdle to overcome. "We see ourselves as very strong, and the system also sees us as having this ability to endure," she said. "Many times, we are not even recognizing that it is okay to ask for help, and that help is sometimes needed, as opposed to just trudging through." Folayan says that meditation has been a key component to their sessions, allowing participants the space and time to sit with their thoughts and see what comes up. Often, she says, just being part of a supportive community is enough.

The day before I spoke with Iyatunde, two clips were circulating around the internet. One was of Bill O'Reilly mocking Democratic Representative Maxine Waters' "James Brown wig." The other was of White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer's blatant dismissal of April Ryan, one of the few black female journalists in the press briefing room. "We are seeing played out on television what many black women experience in their daily life," Folayan said. "And this is at the highest level."

The meditation work that Black Women for Wellness does, in part, tries to undo much of the damage caused by these images of racism, sexism, and violence that regularly circulate through the media. Folayan describes how she has seen women come together to support each other, to receive help without judgment, and to learn how to stay healthy at a time when their identities are often under attack. "We have always had to fight and we will continue to do that," she said, "but it's vital that we learn how to renew and restore ourselves."

Before experiencing Vipassana for myself, I didn't really understand what meditation could do. I had no idea how much I needed help, and how impossible it might have been for me to receive it had I not attended.

I also got the opportunity to sit with and meet powerful women, to suffer in solidarity with them, and to come out on the other side of our own hard work laughing. That, to me, is resilience. After we had left the center and resumed our normal lives, one of my fellow meditators, Isabela, wrote to me about how grounded and energized she felt. After struggling with an eating disorder and body image issues for years, spending conscious time with herself had strengthened her sense of self-love. "Considering the current political climate," she wrote, "we have to treat each other and ourselves well."

Right now, it's especially easy to become overwhelmed, depressed, exhausted and cynical. There are infinite, valid reasons to feel this way. Meditation does not teach you to ignore the realities of our world; it teaches you to acknowledge and empathize with these realities, as a means of moving forward truthfully. Establishing positive patterns for consuming information, processing emotion, and healing your own body can be an act of resistance in itself.

See the rest here:

What Happened When I Tried Meditation to Get Trump Out of My Head - Broadly

14 August 2015, Amritapuri

A mass ceremony was conducted at Amritapuri this morning. Vavu Bali, as it is locally known, is a traditional ritual where oblations are offered to departed ancestors. The ceremony is performed on Amavasi (new moon) in the Hindu month of Karkidaka.

About 1500 devotees personally participated in this special Yagna, joined by thousands of others present at the ashram. Swami Turyamritananda lit the lamp to start the event, and various ceremonies were performed simultaneously in the Ashrams Main Bhajan Hall and the Kali Temple, by Brahmacharis Tapasyamrita Chaitanya, Gurudas Chaitanya, and Shraddhamrita Chaitanya.

During the pujas, sweet rice was offered to all the departed souls, including forefathers and friends, as well as to animals and trees, along with the chanting of sacred mantras and prayers.

Step by step puja instructions were translated simultaneously into different international languages, allowing devotees from various parts of the world to participate.

After the conclusion of the ceremonies, the participants walked in a procession towards the shore to personally consign their offerings to the ocean. In this action, the fish in the ocean are also fed. Tharpanam, a ritualistic offering with water was also performed for the devatas (deities), rishis, and ancestors.

The ceremonies started at 7am and went on till around noon.

Later in the day, after the meditation session with Amma, one of the international devotees thanked all those who helped to conduct the Vavu Bali ceremony. In response Amma said, We always have a thought of only getting, never of giving to others. We grew up because our parents have been giving to us. Now whatever we may give, we cannot repay for what they have given us. Through this ritual, we are showing our respect, out gratitude, towards our departed ancestors. Giving verbal thanks only remains as words, and doesnt get translated into action. By partaking in this ritual, we are performing action spending some time for others, spending some money for them, and chanting mantras. We therefore get purified, creating positive vibrations.

The people who have died might have taken a new birth or attained moksha. Even the remote villagers get their mail properly if the address is correct. You are even able to call him by dialing the correct mobile number. Or if the email id is correct, it will reach him wherever he is. Similarly, if your sankalpa is pure, when making offerings towards departed souls, the result will reach him/her even if he has taken another birth. In addition, we also get the benefit of the mantras and the good actions we do.

Actually, we have to show our gratitude to our parents when they are alive. This ritual is part of Sanatana Dharma, which believes in the rebirth. Whether you believe in this or not, whether they are reborn or not, we get a punya (merit) for the actions we do.

For each action there are two types of results. Drushta Phalam and Adrusthta Phalam the seen and the unseen results. When we feed a hungry orphan, we feel the joy when we see him enjoying the food we have offered that is drushta phalam. The result is visible. By giving food we get some punya merit. That is the unseen result, adrusthta phalam. If you are a sadhak, all that you are doing is done selflessly, the whole world will benefit.

Stating the example of some of the ashramites, Amma concluded, If there is a Sannyasi in a family, three generations before and four generations in the future will receive the merit of his Sannyas.

Kannadi

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Ashram Archives - Amma, Mata Amritanandamayi Devi