Who doesn’t love to walk into the garden and pick a summer ripened juicy tomato to eat off the vine or slice up later with basil and olive oil? It’s almost a rite of summer for gardeners. Many summer vegetables that love heat such as tomatoes, eggplant, and peppers can be started indoors as seeds in late March to mid April to get a head start on the season. Starting seeds indoors is easy, fun, and you get to watch your creation from seed to plant to your dinner plate….

Elephant Nature Park is an elephant rescue and rehabilitation center in the Chiang Mae province of Northern Thailand. They host a number of vibrant programs: you can visit, tour, volunteer, feed, and even sleep with the elephants! Founded by Lek Chailert, known as “The Elephant Whisperer,” ten years ago on just 250 acres, the Park now encompasses over a 1,000 acres and her humane approach has spread to nearby privately owned elephant “rides.”

Here’s a quick round up of some of our favorite articles from this month! As always, we look forward to presenting you with up to date news and information about holistic events, health and well being from both the scientific and the spiritual perspectives, nutrition, vegan lifestyles, and more.

Alive Inside is a wonderful new documentary that looks at the effects of music on people with Alzheimer’s and other age related dementia. Film subjects Oliver Sacks and Dan Cohen explain why music acts as a back door to memory, and share tips for enjoying music with the elders in our lives. This was one of the last projects that Oliver Sacks, noted neurologist and author, was working on before his death last month…

Those who seek a greater spiritual dimension may be searching for glasses that are perched upon our head. Now, after all the experiences I describe in my new book, I see and feel spirit everywhere. We swim in spirit, we breath it, and it breathes us, interpenetrating every cell. We need only open our eyes and hearts in moments of free attention.

Jude Currivan has written several books and has been a long-time friend of Merlian News. We loved her book, The Cosmic Hologram, and its empowering message about reality and our roles as co-creators. So we jumped at the chance to ask Jude how she came to write it, and why its message is so relevant for us today.

Shakespeare’s famous words, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women are merely players” serve as the foundation for Jeffrey Keene’s book, Someone Else’s Yesterday. It is the story of a proud warrior who discovers his past life from another century. It is the story of reincarnation, and opens up a Pandora’s Box (or rather Pandora’s War Chest) of the unconscionable sufferings of the American Civil War — a time in American history when a great nation turned against itself and endured the slaughter of well over 600,000 lives — more American lives than any other conflict in the nation’s history.

The universal numerological cycle for 2022 is the 6th cycle. As with each cycle, specific issues come to the forefront and demand our attention. On a world scale, the focus this year will be on matters of wellness (no surprise), a continuation of changes in ways and how people work, and with the emphasis being on doing work that represents a more straightforward representation of the evolution of our world.

An excerpt from The Clutter Remedy: A Guide to Getting Organized for Those Who Love Their Stuff, by Marla Stone. December is dominated by the holiday season, which often involves lots of parties, visitors, travel, and special meals. Maintaining an organized home is a particular challenge this month, given all the pressure to decorate, buy presents, host gatherings, and cook. This is when having a fine-tuned storing system will help a great deal, since it makes it much easier to find all those special-occasion holiday items.