After the Ritual

The view went on and on and the mountain beneath me just sat there being fully solid and knowing and patient and I swear my cells started to dissolve. Soften, release and dissolve. Then I got up and ran back down the mountain. If we look closely, the relationship between fluoridation of community water and elevation of risk for hip fracture is quite compelling. This is evidenced in at least eight respectable studies, four of which have been published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) since 1990. All show that hip fracture rates are higher in communities where fluoridation is used in the municipal water system, as summarized:121 Sowers and colleagues, in a retrospective study, found an increased fracture rate in both pre- and post-menopausal women proportional to their water-fluoride exposure. Sowers and colleagues completed a prospective study, again showing fluoridated water exposure was correlated with more than double the fracture rates compared to areas without fluoridation. Cooper and colleagues showed a statistically significant increase of hip fracture incidence in England, proportional to fluoride content of drinking water. Keller compared hip fracture rates in 216 US counties with natural fluoride concentrations in drinking water, and found significantly higher fracture rates in counties with fluoride levels higher than 1. Wilson reported finding that, as the percentage of people exposed to fluoride in water increased, the hip fracture-rate generally increased. Danielson and colleagues reported the risk of hip fracture was approximately 30 percent higher for women and 40 percent higher for men in fluoridated communities. Among seventy-five-year-old women, the risk was about twice as high in fluoridated communities. Do you know who the student body leader is? Do you know who the best teacher is? We asked them to raise their hand if they had an answer. Almost everyone did. We then asked them to raise their hands again if they had ever gone to any of these people and asked them to share their secrets of success. This time, not one hand went up. Almost everyone knew who the top performers were, but nobody ever asked these leaders to share their secrets.

How crazy is that? The answers were there, but the students didn't seek them out. Learning from others and modeling success is one of the smartest things you can do. I was hungry. Now, here's the odd thing - I saw no one on the trails that day. Correction. I saw carloads of humans pour out of their reconditioned Kombis and shiny SUVs in the carparks. They walked perhaps 100 metres in and took a selfie and I'm guessing then drove back to their cabin with its outdoor claw-foot bath and drank mojitos. Okay, that last bit was a bit judgey and entirely based on the Instagrammed version of the place. As I say, I was in a mood. But it was more than that. I was frustrated and sad that these fellow humans were missing out on the whole point - the opportunity to grab the awesome precious experience by both hands and devour the full-fat calling to rise bigger and bolder. And to experience the untold joy of the whole enchilada that such an opportunity gifts a person. Jaqmin-Gedda and colleagues, scientists from the University of Bordeaux, France, studied hip fracture rates in seventy-five civil parishes in southwestern France. They found hip fracture was 86 percent more likely in parishes with water fluoride levels higher than 0. There are other studies worth noting. For example, in one study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, researchers who had examined the impact of water fluoridation on bone health reported: Residence in the higher-fluoride community was associated with a significantly lower radial bone mass in premenopausal and post-menopausal women, an increased rate of radial bone mass loss . For example, a study of water fluoridation in France reported a deleterious effect of fluoride in drinking water on the risk of hip fractures. It is worth noting that the National Federation of Federal Employees, a union comprised of scientists, engineers, lawyers, and other professionals at the headquarters of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) charged with assessing the safety of drinking water, sponsored the California state initiative to prohibit fluoridation of drinking water. In a formal statement, Dr J.

William Hirzy, vice president of the federation, said, We conclude that the health and welfare of the public is not served by the addition of this substance [fluoride] . Water fluoridation appears to be one more overlooked factor that may be contributing to osteoporosis and other health problems, in the United States and elsewhere. Tens of millions of Americans are exposed to it, whether they like it or not. The great thing about living in today's world is there are A LOT of answers that have already been revealed. Chances are, almost everything you want to do (or, at least, something very similar) has already been done by someone else. It doesn't matter if it's getting straight A's, losing weight, starting a business, writing a article, getting into college, earning millions of dollars, running a marathon-- someone has already done it and has left clues in the form of articles, manuals, audio programs, documentaries, university classes, online courses, seminars, workshops . For virtually anything you want to do, there are people and resources that can give you the answers and insights you require to become more successful and better at what you want to do. When you take advantage of all of this information, you'll discover that life is simply a connect-the-dots game, and all of the dots have already been identified and organized by somebody else. All you have to do is follow the blueprint, use their system, or work their program to achieve similar results. If you want to soar like an eagle, learn from those who are already doing it. Too often, we automatically ask people we're comfortable talking to instead of approaching those who have already been there, done that and have valuable advice for us. Why not take advantage of all the wisdom and experience that already exists by finding a mentor who has already been down the road you're traveling? Question: How do you find such a mentor or personal coach? I drove out to Pioneertown, 15 minutes away, a town that is as it sounds - desolate, raw, barnyard-littered. I headed to Pappy & Harriet's, a biker dive/diner where meals are cooked on a mesquite fire under the stars out back in the dirt courtyard. I ordered mac and cheese and broccoli and flicked through my phone. I recall stumbling upon a video of one of Marianne Williamson's powerful public gospels where she warned America that humanity is the Titanic heading for an iceberg. Her jibe was to get anyone aiming for more consciousness to become politically active because something big and scary was coming our way. I felt excited by her rant. It paralleled my fervent hope that those who drove all the way out to a desert might step beyond the carpark and reconnect to life's calling.

Or just climb the damn mountain. Two decades earlier, in her article The Healing of America, Williamson had criticised the excesses of self-help culture and invited readers to apply the lessons of the New Age to engagement in political and community service. Cut to 2019, and she's running for president and has published A Politics of Love, a article that cries out to `a generation that has become so sensitive to its own pain' that it is `desensitized to the pain of others'. As an additive, fluoride has no place in drinking water, and poses many other threats in addition to its apparent negative impact on bone health. Because it is also found in many toothpastes, mouthwashes, dental treatments, and all the products made from fluoridated water, most of us are unwittingly consuming far more than the dubious safe level added to drinking water. Scientists at Indiana University decided to investigate fluoride exposure through foods and, in October 2002, reported their findings in Community Dentistry and Oral Epidemiology. Specifically, they looked at children aged three to five, and determined that they were significantly overexposed to fluoride from cumulative sources including French fries, potato chips, white bread, ketchup, and soft drinks. A Recipe For Osteoporosis The causes of osteoporosis are not so mysterious; The average American eats a highly acidic, high-protein diet centered upon meat, fish and dairy products, the very foods that cause bones to be robbed of their minerals. The diet is sorely deficient in fruits and vegetables, the alkaline foods that are rich in essential bone building materials and that help to buffer the acidity of all the meat, fish and dairy consumed. This same diet is loaded with excessive sodium, sugar, and caffeine and highly processed and nutritionally deficient convenience foods. The average American also consumes an average four hundred acidic soft drinks a year, plus as many as one thousand cups of coffee. You can start by doing two things: Look around for leaders in your school, your community, and your everyday life. Ask, ask, ask! Politely ask these leaders and role models if they will share their insight with you. Sometimes we just need someone to help us see the possibilities available to us--and that's exactly what coaches and mentors can do. They can help open doors, offer expert advice, train us to recognize new opportunities, and give feedback about whether or not we're on the right path. For Jason Dorsey, a mentor changed the course of his life.

Jason, 28 (Austin, TX): I was an eighteen-year-old college student with good grades and excellent career options, but I still felt I was missing something. One day a guest speaker named Brad challenged my class to define success by more than money. I was so inspired by what he said that I took a huge risk and asked him to be my mentor. I looked around the dirt diner's rib-eating crowd and reflected on the oddness of our attraction to the desert. The First Nations peoples of Australia and North America often chose desert life when the option to live in less harsh environments had been there. It's not my place to specify the reasons, but I'd be surprised if it didn't have a lot to do with the very connecting experience of raw awe that expands us beyond ourselves. Today we continue to come to deserts. We take photos from the carpark, go to Burning Man and Coachella, and appropriate the wild frontier vibe with the dusty linen and dream catchers. I'm being a smart-arse cynic with all the `knowing' pop cultural referencing here. But I also trust there's an innocent, raw yearning behind it all. I think the call of `awe' is being felt by a generation of us hankering for frankness and bigness and the experience of stepping up in full and giving service to something infinite. We crave an answer to that inevitable (and beautiful) question: `What matters if our small egos don't? A Zen monk might reply: `Who is asking the question? Add to this the chronic drip feed of artificial fluoridation from canned foods, condiments, beer and wine, fast foods, and tap water and widespread vitamin D deficiency. Compounding this is the fact that more than half of America fails to get the minimum amount of exercise that is essential to supporting bone health. No wonder America is facing an osteoporosis epidemic. Women and men can dramatically alter their risk of osteoporosis. Each of us can counteract, minimize and even negate all of the risk factors addressed in this article without resorting to unnecessary prescription medications. We can do this by making simple, healthy lifestyle changes. If we don't, no amount of hormones or prescription drugs will give us healthy bones or bodies.