Herman Aihara’s Birthday
Herman Aihara was born on September 28, 1920. Along with many others I had the great good fortune to have him as one of my macrobiotic mentors. I only wish that more of today’s macrobiotic teachers, counselors and individuals would have studied with him in-depth during his lifetime. I believe this would have very much deepened and broadened the view of macrobiotics for so many. Herman was unique
Like he did with all of his students, he showed me the necessity of finding real freedom through personal happiness and creativity. Many have commented over the years that the following definition of macrobiotics by Herman is their very favorite. So, I want to share it with you on this day, his birthday.
A Definition of Macrobiotics by Herman Aihara
“Macrobiotics amounts to finding our physiological limitations and trying to live within them. This is the cultivation of humbleness. When we think that we can do anything we want, we become arrogant. This arrogance causes sickness.
When we are living within our physical limitations, then our spirituality is free. Macrobiotics seeks freedom in spirit. Freedom exists in our spirit – so we can think anything. But biologically, physiologically we are unfree. We can wish to eat anything we want, but we cannot do it and still live within our natural physiological limitations.
Disciplining physical unfreedom is the foundation of spiritual freedom. God didn’t give us unlimited biological freedom, but appreciating and taking into consideration our unfree physical condition leads us to greater freedom, both physically and spiritually.”
– Herman Aihara
author of Acid & Alkaline
Basic Macrobiotics
Learning from Salmon
and other books
ON MY BIRTHDAY: MY PARENTS
On My Birthday: My Parents by David Briscoe
On this my 61st birthday, I would like to give you the gift of sharing something of my parents with you. I am such a fortunate man to have had Vernon and Charlotte for my parents. Their example of how to live in the world, how to treat others, how to make one’s way through life’s challenges, and how to raise their children, my 2 bothers and 2 sisters, to become solid and decent human beings, remains to this day the firm ground beneath my feet. My father was a success through his own will and determination. Nothing was given to him to make his life easy. When he was 12 his father died, and my father started working hard at little fruit stand in Kansas City, Kansas to make money for himself and his mother. She ran a boarding house to make ends meet. My father remained with the little fruit stand for 60 years, as it decade by decade turned into a major supermarket chain in the Midwest. When he retired, he was a vice president. My father showed me that you could be successful without having to cut others down or betray them. He earned his success by very hard work, honest living, enduring great hardship, and through loyalty to his company and family. He was a fair and just man. In honor of his sense of justice, I named my first son Justin. My father passed away in 2008 at the age of 93. He still had his sharp mind, and his attitude of honor and respect for all people around him, from all walks of life, never faded.
My mother was the intellectual, artistic one. She gave her children a sense of humanity. In her home, racial slurs or putting other religions and cultures down was never heard. She came from a poor Irish- American Catholic family. Her mother died when she was 1 year old, and she was raised by her paternal grandparents until her father remarried. When she was a little girl, other kids from nicer neighborhoods would spit on her as she walked to school because she was poor and Catholic. This experience and other suffering as a child and young woman made her a deep, strong and kind mother. She loved literature and writing
When all of her 5 children were raised, my mother went back to school. She graduated from college when she was 70 years old. She passed away on her birthday, Christmas Eve 1990. She used to tell me when I was a little boy, “I’ll always be with you on Christmas Eve.” She has kept true to her word.
I am so very fortunate, so incredibly blessed that Vernon and Charlotte were my parents. On this, my birthday, September 22, 2010, I am happy to share something of them with you. I love my parents, and I understand now what they tried to show me by their example and guidance, which I often rejected in my youth, and I will do my best to live the rest of my life in honor of them. I miss them every day but their beautiful lesson of being true human beings is with me always. Peace to you, the reader of these words, on this day, my birthday, and every day of your life. – David Briscoe
Australia Journal Update 3
Kangaroos are the most amazing site. They have such a presence when the stop and stand on their hind legs, watching you in total stillness and concentration
I’ve never seen anything like it, this stillness and total attention of theirs. I didn’t imagine that kangaroos could be such great teachers.
All animals have so much to teach us if we just watch them and learn.
Stress & Acid-Alkaline Health by David Briscoe
Stress & Acid-Alkaline Health by David Briscoe
We usually talk about food being the factor in acid-alkaline imbalance, but there are other contributing
factors. Many people who have herpes, cold sores, canker sores and other similar viral infections, notice that the symptoms will flare up unexpectedly and then subside, going dormant until the next flare up. And many of these people notice that the flare-ups are often preceded by an increase in the stress level of their daily lives. This is due to the fact that a virus is stimulated by the elevation of acidity that happens during stress. Additionally, the extra-cellular fluid, the fluid around the cells, becomes slightly more concentrated in acid, and this acid causes the cell membrane to become weak. When the cell membrane weakens the virus can easily enter and become active again. This causes the flare-up of symptoms.
It is easy to say, “Manage your stress,” but we all know how difficult this is to do. Just driving in a car is stressful. Traveling of any kind is stressful, even if it’s a cruise or other vacation. Add to these common,
daily stresses, the stress of a difficult relationship, challenging job and co-workers, financial crises, and unexpected traumas and difficulties, and it’s easy to see how stress affects us.
So, what can we do? I do believe that a lot of the affect of stress comes in our response to stressful situations. Stress is not going to disappear from our lives, but we CAN learn how to deal with it differently, so that it’s affect on us is minimized. When a person is feeling weak and tired, stress has more of a negative affect. Everything seems overwhelming. Here are some things to consider doing, to make yourself stronger so that your way of dealing with stress can improve:
1. Strengthen your kidneys by doing something personally courageous such as developing your ability to do public speaking, or signing solo in front of others, or overcoming some other personal fear you’ve had inside but could transform if you too the necessary steps. When you overcome a personal fear, you will develop the ability to deal with stress in so many other areas of your life
2. Adopt “mindfulness” practices that can be used through out the day. For this I’ve personally found some of the simple techniques taught by Thich Nhat Hanh to be very practical and useful. He has written many books. His book, Being Peace, is a good place to start.
3. Minimize or avoid the extremely acid-forming foods, meat (of all kinds) and sugar (of all kinds).
May abundant blessings shower upon you and yours!
Macrobiotics Beyond Food by David Briscoe
Macrobiotics Beyond Food by David Briscoe
If we set aside for a moment the food aspect of macrobiotics, what is there to call macrobiotics? Anything? What is macrobiotics beyond its food and physical health benefits? Does it have anything else to offer an individual and society? When I first was introduced to macrobiotics in 1972 by a cookbook a friend had left at my apartment door, I didn’t have any interest in food, and I made no association between food and my health or any of the physical and mental challenges I was facing at the time
But reading that book changed my life. It wasn’t the recipes and the food ingredients printed there. I didn’t even know what those ingredients were, and I rarely cooked for myself. But something else in the book appealed to me. There was mention of “freedom,” self-responsibility,” “creative thinking,” “wholeness,” and other such concepts. I was surprised to find mention of these in a cookbook. Still to this day, these concepts are what fuel my on-going macrobiotic adventure. But I find this spirit of macrobiotics fading from macrobiotic teachings and consciousness today as the predominant view being promoted is that of macrobiotics as glam cooking for movie stars, gourmet recipes, and “vegan cuisine.” I understand that this is partly an attempt to make macrobiotics more appealing and to reach out to the masses who might be scared by the word “macrobiotics,” but it seems to me that promoting macrobiotics as another vegan or natural diet only, stripped of its spirit and creative principles, is missing the deeper opportunity to really help humanity and the planet.
In my opinion, the real beauty and true depth of macrobiotics is not in its food and health aspects, though some of us have experienced dramatic healing from this alone, but in the “spirit of macrobiotic living” from which the dietary aspect of macrobiotics has emerged. What is macrobiotic living between meals? How do macrobiotic principles and view of life express themselves outside of the kitchen? In our daily lives, how do we live and behave as a result of having looked at life through the macrobiotic view?
And what IS the “macrobiotic view?” I am curious to know how macrobiotics
touches your life besides the ways in which you eat. Please share this with me.
Comments or questions are welcome.
