The following words are from the work of Alice Bailey and Djwhal Khul (the Tibetan). Repeat them daily. I say them while looking in the mirror early each morning. I have taken the liberty of adding ‘and daughters' to the first line. You can choose to use that additon or not. May this world find peace.

Mantram of Unification

The sons (and daughters) of men are one & I am one with them.
I seek to love not hate. I seek to serve, not exact due service.
I seek to heal, not hurt.
Let pain bring just reward of light & love.
Let the soul control the outer form & life & all events
& bring to light the love which underlies the happenings of the time.
Let vision come and insight, let the future stand revealed.
Let inner union demonstrate & outer cleavages be gone.
Let love prevail. Let all men love.

Two days ago I watched this movie with my nutrition class. Rebecca Hosking grew up on a farm in Devon. Her memories of her childhood are less than nostalgic. Farm life was drudgery. Her father called the work glorified sanitation work. It seems they were always shovelling manure. She was encouraged to leave the farm and get a ‘real' job. She did. She became a wildlife film maker.

This movie is a coming home of sorts. Here's what it says on the BBC website:

"Wildlife film maker Rebecca Hosking investigates how to transform her family's farm in Devon into a low energy farm for the future, and discovers that nature holds the key.

With her father close to retirement, Rebecca returns to her family's wildlife-friendly farm in Devon, to become the next generation to farm the land. But last year's high fuel prices were a wake-up call for Rebecca. Realising that all food production in the UK is completely dependent on abundant cheap fossil fuel, particularly oil, she sets out to discover just how secure this oil supply is.

Alarmed by the answers, she explores ways of farming without using fossil fuel. With the help of pioneering farmers and growers, Rebecca learns that it is actually nature that holds the key to farming in a low-energy future."

The film is roughly 48 minutes in duration and is spread over five clips. I highly recommend viewing this. It is a wakeup call with a positive message. Once again it looks like we'd better learn to grow some food. Permaculture and organics appear to hold the keys.

Fukuoka maintains that our society's motto seems to be that ‘Bigger is Better.' People want to feel important through ‘important' jobs. He saw that agriculture, in Japan and elsewhere in the modern world, has come to rely on chemicals and machines. In order to pay for the costs of these inputs farmers aim for higher yields and people get busier and busier.

Fukuoka suggests we can look at how plants grow in Nature-effortlessly. If man could work with Nature to grow his food he could live without much work and exertion.

After leaving his work as a trained microbiologist and research scientist, Fukuoka began to search for methods of growing that were more natural than the modern trends that surrounded him.

He developed a method of growing rice that involves no digging, ploughing or machines. He walks through his field(s) of high standing rice just before the time of harvest, hand sowing seeds of winter grain-usually barley-and white clover. After harvesting the rice, the rice straw is left lying on the ground as mulch and to return organic material to the soil. Some chicken manure is added.

In time the winter grain and clover seeds germinate and grow. Clover fixes nitrogen for the barley, reduces weed growth and its roots break up the soil.

Rice is usually sown in the spring, when heavy rains help it to germinate and discourage the growth of the clover. Barley straw is left on the ground, again as mulch and to improve the soil. Fukuoka hasn't ploughed his fields in decades. In that time the soil has dramatically improved. Microbes, worms and other creatures broke down organic material and, together with the roots of plants, aerated the soil. He experienced little insect and pest damage, hypothesising that the plants grew stronger and more resistant in the undisturbed soil.

He decided to plant a steep hillside with citrus trees, without resorting to the building of terraces. He started out by dynamiting holes in the rock-hard soil for mandarin and orange trees. In time, he found an easier and more natural way. Fast growing acacias were established to fix nitrogen. Within seven years each tree was the size of a telegraph pole and could be cut down for firewood. The citrus trees were under planted with comfrey, burdock and daikon (long white radish, a traditional Japanese vegetable). The soil is now richer and more manageable and it supports low care vegetables (even comfrey roots are eaten and are claimed to be delicious) and a nearly pest-free citrus crop. He plants a few acacias each year to ensure a constant supply of firewood for heating and cooking.

Fukuoka states that chemically-grown vegetables may be considered as foodstuffs but not as medicine, whereas organic, naturally grown plants can be considered to be both medicine and food. This sounds like Hippocrates saying 2400 years earlier, "Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food."

Fukuoka warns of the dangers of Europeans dedicating so much of their arable land to wine grapes and livestock. He says that an equivalent acreage, dedicated to the growing of grain and vegetables, could support many more people. He is concerned that the industrialization of society is wasteful and polluting. In Japan sulphur dioxide (SO2) from factories changes into sulphuric acid in the atmosphere, and has resulted in the widespread death of native pine trees. He sees that the world is moving forward quickly and without regard for the consequences of rapid change. In the West, people are separated from nature and industrial agriculture is based on what he considers contempt for Nature. In Japanese philosophy God is in Nature, the wind and the rain and the plants, in everything. Since God is in rice, eating rice in a conscious way puts one on the same level as God. He urges everyone to turn back to Nature for solutions. He says anyone can use ‘Natural Farming'. What he calls The Great Way has no gates.

The One Straw Revolution is Masanobu Fukuoka's manifesto about farming, eating, and the limits of human knowledge. In reading it I could see and feel that for Masanobu growing and eating food is indivisible from spirituality. What a contrast and challenge to the present global systems of food growing and procurement.

I've been a mostly raw food vegan for the last 12 years and a vegetarian for about 23 years. I was recently blood-tested for B12 and found to be below the medically acceptable range of 160 to 600. My count was 129. My folate, calcium, potassium and other levels were all fine. I was only low in B12. I was experiencing no adverse symptoms. I am extremely healthy and full of energy.

I decided to have a B12 injection and I purchased a B12 supplement. I wrote the following letter to two friends who will remain anonymous. Both are long time vegans. The first is a raw foodie. Their answers follow.

‘I'd really appreciate your experience with B-12 in the following possible areas that could help me in choosing how I want to approach this:

1. What were your levels when you discovered you were low in B12?
2. What have they become?
3. Have you used injections and if so how frequently?
4. Have you found the need to supplement? If so, how often and how much?
5. What symptoms were you experiencing when you were found deficient?
6. Did the symptoms disappear quickly? Have they ever returned?
7. Do you think you'll need to continue supplementing?
8. Can you describe significant/meaningful experiences with this of anyone else you know?

I know this is a bit of big ask but your answers would be really appreciated.

I'm out to the garden soon. What a spectacularly beautiful day.'

Answer 1:

Dear John,

Ahhh...you can't be suffering too much from a B12 deficiency, otherwise you wouldn't have remembered that I had some experience in this realm!

Anyway...to answer your questions...

• I don't know how low my levels were back in 1994 when I was tested by a doctor in Devonport, NZ, but I do remember him saying he had never seen such low levels, and that he forbade me to leave the office until I had the first of three injections.  He then injected me with cyanocobalamin in the buttocks, and it was almost instantly like my life was a camera suddenly coming into focus.
• I have no idea what my levels have become, as I have never been tested since.
• I have not had any injections since then.  However, a few months back I was given a sample packet from Whole Foods of a new oral version of B12 that was supposed to be absorbed much better than cyanocobalamin.  The new version was made from methylcobalamin.  Out of curiosity, I took it for three days in a row, and each time I took it, I'd feel dizzy and sick within about 20 minutes.  After the third time, I woke up in the middle of night, feeling extremely dizzy and like I needed to throw up, so I started to walk to the bathroom.  The next thing I remember was passing out & collapsing against the glass shower door and onto the floor.  Well, I remembered that after I woke up from my unconsciousness.  Anyway, as you can imagine, I never took those pills again.
• When I was found deficient back in 1994, I was experiencing mental vagueness.
• The symptoms cleared up after the injection, and I've never felt mentally vague since then.
• As far as taking B12 anymore, I've realized that I do much better on a fruit and vegetable diet (not just a fruit diet).  By eating vegetables from my own gardens and being very careful not to wash the produce, I feel I'm getting whatever microbes I need to make my own B12 (just like other animals do).  And, I guess I could go have my levels tested, but I have become so against the Western way of looking at the body, that I just don't see the point.
• I don't have any knowledge of experiences with B12 with other people.

Answer 2:

Hi John,
 
When I was low, my level was 60. I was feeling something with my nerve sheaths, which they said was not reversable, but it was reversed and I feel absolutely fine now. I had a B12 injection when I found out. Since then, I always supplement, just a small amount like once or twice a week at the most. I was retested last week along with many other vitamins, nutrients, hormones, and I was perfect, not even near low on anything. I supplement with B12 sublinguals, and have for years now, so they are obviously working. Sublinguals is the best. B12 shots are possibly a waste (so I've been told) for further ones. They could be water soluable or something where a doctor told me to not do the shots, but sublinguals. We only (supposedly) need minute amounts of B12. I wouldn't fret too much if you don't feel anything with your nerves. Just supplement. I don't usually supplement anything but B12. I get my Vitamin D from the sunshine on the skin making it. I'm fine with all other nutrients.

And here's another bit of information I found at http://www.answers.yahoo.com/  I've eaten bee pollen for many years. It was only after beginning with pollen that I put hay fever behind me after suffering from it my whole life. It hasn't returned and I can put my nose in any flower today. It is a great pleasure. It would appear that there are trace quantities of B-12 in pollen but the following Q&A is insightful.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081023102914AA6ZJEt

Is bee pollen a good source of vitamin b-12?

I've been vegan for 6 years (taking supplements like calcium and b-12, etc.) I decided to experiment and go raw vegan with no supplements, but am concerned about a b-12 deficiency. It's made me think about becoming a bee-gan, i.e. vegan with the exception of bee pollen, if it's a good, sustainable, natural source of b-12. Anyone have info on this? Thanks.

First: Props on being a vegan who understands the importance of B12. Too many of your brothers and sisters seem to think they can argue their way out of a necessary nutrient.

That's not a side note: that's part of the problem. Whatever your source of B12, make sure that it is from a proven source. Some vegen/vegetarian apologists have been selling products from plant sources containing B12 analogues. Simple tests seem to indicate B12 in their product, so they sell it. More careful analysis finds that pseudo B12, of no use to your body, was giving a false positive.

Long story short, B12 comes from animal sourced foods and supplements.

Bee pollen is a bit dicey. For starters, it's going to vary a lot from one source to another. Given the vegans I know, I'd bet my eye teeth you'd be going with pollen from a single, raw source. I understand why, but this increases the variation problem. Larger, commercial producers would likely produce a more homogeneous pollen.

I've not found any reliable sources for nutritionals on B12. Honey seems to be a minor source (FW IW). If nothing else, you could try it, with regular blood tests to check your actual B12 level. Remember that B12 deficiency does not develop overnight, nor can you really reverse it overnight. The safest course of action would include a B12 supplement or a fortified food source.

In health,

John

Here is a mantra suggested by Archangel Michael August 17, 1999 through Ronna Herman in the USA. I have worked with this on and off in the years since receiving it and I am happy to share it with you now:

‘I have all the resources I need and desire to be comfortable and to assist me in fulfilling my divine mission. I live in the perfect place to nourish my spirit and my physical, mental and emotional bodies. Abundance flows to me and through me as I hold it lightly in my hands and allow it to flow out into the world to constantly be replenished. All my desires, needs and wishes are fulfilled even before I am aware of them. My timing is perfect in making decisions and taking action. I always listen to and follow my Spirit in every endeavour; therefore my decisions and actions are for the highest good of all. I cherish and nurture our Mother Earth and she cherishes and supports me. I radiate love and blessings to all and they are returned to me tenfold. My world is filled with love, joy, beauty, peace and comfort always.'

Affirm these words daily and watch the magic unfold in your life. For more on the wonderful work Ronna is doing and to gain access to how to find your mission on this planet at this special time visit her website at: http://www.ronnastar.com/

Love and blessings,

John