moonviewing, sweet slumber

We spend up to a third of our lives asleep.  Although some hard-driving people may view sleep as an inconvenience that curtails productivity and leisure activities, slumber is certainly no waste of time. In fact, sleep may play a more crucial role than diet or exercise in fostering optimal health.

A natural restorative, sleep offers an antidote to the damage done to our bodies during the day.  It allows the body to replenish its immune system, eliminate free radicals, and ward off heart disease and mood imbalances.  When sleep is disrupted—whether by lifestyle factors, insomnia, sleep apnea, narcolepsy, restless legs syndrome, jet lag, sleepwalking, night terrors, imbalance of hormones, or some other disorder—emotional and physiological health suffers.  But you don’t have to accept sleep deprivation and the ills that accompany it.   One way to gently snooze your way back to health is to focus on balancing your hormones.

Balance your hormones
The word hormone comes from the Greek hormon, meaning “to stir up.”  Hormones are released by the various endocrine glands in the body in order to regulate energy production, growth, sexual development, stress responses, and many other functions.  Because minute quantities of hormones can “stir up” so many activities in the body, when they are thrown out of balance the results can affect the entire body.  Imbalances of Hormones often manifest as insomnia and other sleep problems.  Key factors that can upset hormone levels include thyroid dysfunctions, perimenopause and menopause (in fact, disturbed sleep is one of the complaints that cause women to seek treatment for menopause and perimenopause), and andropause (the male form of menopause).  Although hormone levels generally decline as a result of aging, they can also be affected by dietary choices, mineral deficiencies, environmental toxins and synthetic chemicals, medications, smoking, and stress.

Rather than artificially manipulating your estrogen levels with synthetic hormones and ignoring the reasons behind any imbalances of hormones, it is more valuable to determine why you have imbalances of hormones in the first place. Depending on the reason, restoring hormonal balance may be more effectively achieved with dietary changes, nutritional supplements, natural progesterone cream, herbal therapy, or traditional Chinese medicine tailored to the specific factors causing the imbalance of hormones.

Zen Clock with Chime for a progressive awakening to sweet a slumber

Now  & Zen

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

Excerpted from Alternative Medicine magazine’s Definitive Guide to Sleep Disorders: 7 Smart Ways to Help You Get a Good Night’s Rest (Celestial Arts, 2007)

Garden of Kokedera Temple, Kyoto 1980, Tokuriki

Almost everyone has a cherished memory of sleeping outdoors.  A roof of stars, a cricket lullaby, the cool air on your face, awakening to the calls of birds and the first rays of the sun.  It’s a welcome relief from the confines of a square room, stale indoor smells, and noisy appliances. 

One particular outdoor sleeping experience made me a believer.  A friend and I were camping in late summer at the edge of a meadow in an oak woodland.  We kept it simple: sleeping bags rolled out on a tarp. The first night I remember thinking, Is nature always this noisy?  How am I supposed to sleep?  To my city-numbed senses, it was all new: the low moan of the wind in the tree branches, the crunching footfall of small animals on dried leaves, the hoot of owls, the distant howl of coyotes.  And that moon—won’t somebody turn out the light?

But by the second night, the living world had woven me into its tapestry.  I fell asleep easily, held by the earth, stroked by sweet breezes, reassured by the rustling of life all around me.  When we broke camp a few days later, I felt like I was being torn from maternal arms.  All my cells, newly accustomed to a deep sense of homecoming, told me that something precious was being left behind.

We were made for this stuff.  Our ancestors were sleeping outdoors long before there were doors to sleep out of.  Our senses, our psyches, our biological clocks are attuned to the rhythms of the sun and moon and the sounds, smells, and feel of the living web.  When we sleep, we renew ourselves; there is no more important time to breathe clean, cool air and hear the thrumming of nature.

Teahouse at Daitokuji Temple, Kyoto by Tokuriki, 1977

Try this at home

If you need a breath of fresh air tonight, you can start inexpensively: Pitch a tent in the yard or pull your bed onto the deck in fair weather. I f you enjoy the experience, you may want to build a permanent sleeping porch or pavilion with a table for your portable Bamboo Zen Alarm Clock.  Or you can alter an existing room to open up when the weather is pleasant; a wall of windows or doors that move aside can bring the outdoors to you.

adapted from Natural Home, July/August 2002 by Carol Venolia

Zen Alarm Clock, Ukiyo-e Hokusai Wave Dial Face

Now & Zen

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO 80302

A shakuhachi flute, traditionally made of bamboo

The shakuhachi, is a Japanese end-blown flute.  It is traditionally made of bamboo, but versions now exist hardwoods.  It was used by the monks of the Fuke of Zen Buddhism in the practice of suizen, blowing meditation). 

Suizen is a Zen practice consisting of playing the shakuhachi bamboo flute as a means of attaining self-realization.  The monks from the Fuke sect of Zen who practiced suizen were called komusō (“emptiness monks”).

adapted from wikipedia.org

B Tone Digital Zen Alarm Clock in a Bamboo Finish

Now & Zen

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

stillness of being

Geidō refers to the way of the traditional Japanese arts: Noh (theater), kadō (Japanese flower arrangement), shodō  (Japanese calligraphy), Sadō (Japanese tea ceremony), and yakimono (Japanese pottery).  All of these ways carry an ethical and aesthetic connotation and appreciate the process of creation.

To introduce discipline into their training, Japanese warriors followed the example of the arts that systematized practice through prescribed forms called kata – think of the tea ceremony.

adapted from wikipedia.org

Zen Timepiece, a bowl/gong alarm clock and timer in cherry finish

Now & Zen

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

Full Moon Sumida River, Hiroshige Ukiyo-e

while I walk on
the moon keeps pace beside me
friend in the water

-Masahide-

Bamboo Digital Chime Clock, a meditation timer and alarm clock

Now & Zen

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

Butterfly on Large Light Yellow Lilly, Kosan 1912

Bamboo Digital Chime Clock, a meditation timer and alarm clock

Now & Zen

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

One Hundred Famous Views of Edo. #56. Irises at Horikirin, Hiroshige

The term “Japanese iris” encompasses three varieties of irises cultivated in gardens or growing wild in Japan: hanashōbu, kakitsubata and ayame.

adapted from wikipedia.org

Timer for meditation by Now & Zen Inc.

Now & Zen

1638 Pearl St.

Boulder, CO  80302

moonviewing

Quite the contrary

to what I’d thought, passing clouds

are sometimes simply

the moon’s entertainment,

its lovely decoration.

-saigyo-

Zen Alarm Clock in Maple Finish, Japanese Leaves Dial Face

Now & Zen

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

lotus

How mysterious!

The lotus remains unstained by its muddy roots,

delivering shimmering

bright jewels from common dew.

-Henjo  (816- 890) was a Japanese waka poet and Buddhist priest.

Zen Chime Clock with Japanese Maple Leaves in Honey Finish

Now & Zen

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

Harunobu Ukiyo-e Print, Girl Parachuting Into the Branches of a Flowering Cherry

this world of dew

is yes, a world of dew

and yet…

-issa kobayshi-

Black Lacquer Zen Alarm Clock and Meditation Timer

Now & Zen

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302