Howdy from Houston.

The "Dog Days" of Summer is our focus this issue of August's Through Your Body News. We take a look at the spectrum of Summer fun...and Summer heat. Heat waves are rocking, and broiling our friends to the north and the west. As I write this it's cooler in Houston than it is in Michigan or San Francisco. To that end, run--don't walk to see An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore's tribute to saving our planet.

I offer my aromatherapy remedies for staying cool and balanced through the final days of summer. Tracey Mallett offers some excellent exercises for late summer bikini wear. And for star watchers, a few words about where "Dog Days" really comes from.

Hope you're making the best of your summer and you are swell.   

Love your way,
Alan Davidson

• The Artist's Way--An Inconvenient Truth
• AROMATHERAPY OILS TO EASE THE HEAT
• Summer Fitness for Busy Women:
• Excellent Natural Bug Sprays
• FAQs about the World's Healthiest Foods
• An exercise in religion:
• Stars in the Summer Night's Sky
• An Inconvenient Truth: A Global Warning
• Texas Big Mind Zen Meditation Retreat!
• Your Monthly Astrocast by Michael Lutin

Gore's ‘traveling global warming show’ brims with insights, idealism, and hope!

See More images from An Inconvenient Truth

By Alan Davidson

Summer in Houston—Tis the season for trips to the beach, picnics in the park, and enjoying the great outdoors. There is also a price to be paid for our summertime frolics. Too much fun in the sun can cause sunburn; too many barbecues can upset the stomach; and pesky flying insects abound.

Aromatherapy is the fun and holistic use of plant essential oils to treat and balance the body, mind and spirit. These oils are a natural way to minimize the effects of our Houston summer. A few ways that E/O are helpful are in skin care, cooling off, pesky critters, indigestion and the general malaise of the constant heat. I’ll first introduce you to the oils you can use for some summer complaints. Later in the article I’ll talk about specifics for applying the oils to your body.

Read full article...

4 Quick Exercises To Stay Firm During Bikini Season by Tracey Mallett

It’s summertime, and the living is easy – except when you have to think about putting on an itsy-bitsy- teeny-weeny yellow polka dot bikini! But don’t worry, there’s still time to get in shape to strut your stuff on the beach or the boardwalk!

These tried-and-tested exercises can give you quick results with just 10 minute focused workouts every other day. (If you’re on a serious mission and feeling really motivated, feel free to go for it every day!) And don’t forget to mix up these moves with some cardio work, even if it’s a game of soccer with the kids or a brisk walk to the park. Take advantage of the extra quality time you’re spending with the kids, family or friends this summer - whether at home or on vacation - and put the fun things you do to work to stay active. Every calorie counts!

And after a few weeks with these exercises, you can look your best in the season’s latest teeny-weeny bikini fashions! Have fun in the sun – but don’t forget the sunscreen!!

Read full article

To Swat or Not?

by Stephen Philbrick, Fishing Guide

JUST as some people prefer organic food, they are also choosing insect repellents made without DEET, a common pesticide. Their concern? Studies have shown that DEET can cause neurological problems, especially in children, if used in high concentrations for prolonged periods.

For consumers who would rather avoid it, there are more all-natural repellents than ever before, made with ingredients like lemon eucalyptus oil.

To see which ones worked best, Stephen Philbrick, a licensed fishing guide and an owner of Bald Mountain Camps in Oquossoc, Me., fished and kayaked for a week, frequently reapplying each product. Mr. Philbrick noted that the botanical products didn’t create “a protection zone around you” like the repellent he usually wears — Deep Woods OFF! — but they all worked, in varying degrees.

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Among the thousands of different foods our world provides, the majority contain at least several of the nutrients our bodies need but to be included as one of the World's Healthiest Foods they had to meet the criteria listed below.

The criteria we used will also help you understand why some of your favorite (and also nutritious) foods may not be included on our list. For example, Readers have asked why mango, a very nutritious food, is not among the World's Healthiest Foods. While mangoes taste great and are rich in vitamins and minerals, they do not fit our criteria of familiarity and availability.

1. The World's Healthiest Foods are the Most Nutrient Dense

The World's Healthiest Foods have been selected because they are among the richest sources of many of the essential nutrients needed for optimal health. We used a concept called nutrient density to determine which foods have the highest nutritional value.

See the list of the World's Healthiest Foods...

Summer camp for Hindu kids blends fun, spiritual instruction
By BARBARA KARKABI

RICHMOND, TEXAS -- The American teens in shorts and jeans eagerly questioned the Hindu holy man in saffron-colored robes.

"Swami," a young man said, "in Texas people say if you don't believe in Jesus Christ you will go to hell. In Islam they say there is only (one) God.

How do you answer those people when they talk to you like that?"

And how, a young girl asked, do they explain Hinduism and its many traditions to others?

Swami Vidyadhishananda Giri's answer was swift and direct. "There are many paths to God," he said. "God is one, knowledge is one. The very basic teachings are universal. You cannot lose your inner strength, even if someone provokes you."

Read More ...

The Dog Days of Summer with Sirius, the “Dog Star”

Everyone knows that the “dog days of summer” occur during the hottest and muggiest part of the season. Webster defines “dog days” as...

1 : the period between early July and early September when the hot sultry weather of summer usually occurs in the northern hemisphere

2 : a period of stagnation or inactivity But where does the term come from? Why do we call the hot, sultry days of summer “dog days?”

In ancient times, when the night sky was unobscured by artificial lights and smog, different groups of peoples in different parts of the world drew images in the sky by “connecting the dots” of stars. The images drawn were dependent upon the culture: The Chinese saw different images than the Native Americans, who saw different pictures than the Europeans. These star pictures are now called constellations, and the constellations that are now mapped out in the sky come from our European ancestors.

Read More about the Dog Days in the sky...

“Gore's ‘traveling global warming show’ brims with insights, idealism, and hope!”

Humanity is sitting on a ticking time bomb. If the vast majority of the world's scientists are right, we have just ten years to avert a major catastrophe that could send our entire planet into a tail-spin of epic destruction involving extreme weather, floods, droughts, epidemics and killer heat waves beyond anything we have ever experienced.

If that sounds like a recipe for serious gloom and doom -- think again. From director Davis Guggenheim comes the Sundance Film Festival hit, AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH, which offers a passionate and inspirational look at one man's fervent crusade to halt global warming's deadly progress in its tracks by exposing the myths and misconceptions that surround it.

That man is former Vice President Al Gore, who, in the wake of defeat in the 2000 election, re-set the course of his life to focus on a last-ditch, all-out effort to help save the planet from irrevocable change.

In this eye-opening and poignant portrait of Gore and his "traveling global warming show," Gore also proves himself to be one of the most misunderstood characters in modern American public life. Here he is seen as never before in the media - funny, engaging, open and downright on fire about getting the surprisingly stirring truth about what he calls our "planetary emergency" out to ordinary citizens before it's too late.

Read More about An Inconvenient Truth

Five Day Big Mind retreat in Austin

SEPTEMBER 04 – 08, 2006 The Crossings Austin, TX

Led By Roshi Dennis Genpo Merzel

Dennis Genpo Merzel Roshi’s teachings facilitate a mind of clarity, wisdom, and compassion. His beautifully simple approach helps us circumvent mental busyness to rest in states that are innate, yet outside ordinary experience until they are recognized and encouraged. With Roshi’s guidance and lively participatory exercises, we learn to shift to these mind/body states, shed our fears, and live more purposeful, joyful lives.

What makes the process work is his skillful facilitation, the mutual trust he establishes with participants, and his unshakeable, contagious confidence that every one of us can instantly awaken to our true nature, like the great masters of old. Roshi combines Zen tradition with the insights of such visionary western figures as Carl Jung, Fritz Perls, and Hal Stone, enabling virtually anyone to realize their true nature, a realization they can further deepen through meditation.

For more information

Michael Lutin is the weirdly wonderful, wise and mad astrologer for VANITY FAIR MAGAZINE. He doses your planetary advice with humor and whimsy.

Wisdom of the Month...