Saturday, February 23, 2008

Plug


I saw this woman's art work at the Santa Cruz Bookshop last year. Really liked it. This is from her '08 calendar.

Check out nikkimcclure.com

Not everything speaks to me as loudly as everything else, but I enjoy her particularly pacific style very much

D

Thursday, February 21, 2008

How to Brush - a follow up

So it turns out that when you have a blog, you can post any old thing you want to, any old time you want to. How cool is that?

So this is lifted from glenbrooksfarm.com, but it's mainly an elaboration on a plan I've been having since my last trip to the dentist.

My last dentist trip took two trips. The first one he checked to see if my fillings were loose, as I was in a little bit of pain. They weren't.

So I came back the next day to meet with his crony who had a new age-y way of checking your teeth involving applied kinesiology and some sort of dentalized cranio-sarcal work. This guy assured me that my fillings weren't loose since, in his words, dentist make good money by replacing fillings, so if one of them was loose he would have found it. Finally, an honest doctor.

This guy had me chewing on all kinds of dental chew paper which left little purple dyes on my teeth to show where they were rubbing together. Fascinating. He offered to drill down my teeth where the markings were, then even them out side to side. Or he could put little shims on either side of my mouth to stack me up above the problem. Neither solution interested me, so I left.

What he didn't do was take the purple dye off, so whatever was on that stuff stayed on my teeth through the night.

Well the short version is for the next three days my teeth hurt twice as much as they had the preceding month. Seriously hurt. It strains even my conspiratorial instincts to believe that the ADA would put some kind of acid on their dental strips to punish patients that don't allow their teeth to be drilled down, but really, what other explanation is there?

Anyway, highly pissed, I determined to scrub whatever residue was left off of my teeth with good ol' fashioned baking soda, just like the pilgrims did- or whoever.

Well sure enough it worked. Not only was the extra post-dentist pain gone, but the original pain is gone to, and I can chew without issue. But just to rub it in, I ordered some powdered (non-irradiated) bentonite from the online herb people and mixed it in with the baking soda. Bentonite clay sucks all of the toxins out of anything, so if there were, as they claim, bacteria hanging out in my gums, this stuff would pick it up and wash it away. Awesome.

Below is an elaboration on my recipe. Use in good health.
D

Btw- just read through the recipe- please store in a GLASS jar. You don't want the bentonite wasting its sucking power on the toxins in your plastic cup from Wal-Mart. Also, it's not totally necessary to wet the toothbrush. You can just dip it in the jar or sprinkle it on top if you're sharing and are worried about germs. D



1/2 cup Baking Soda
1/2 cup bentonite clay powder
11/2 teaspoon Myrrh powder
1 teaspoon dried Raspberry leaf
1 teaspoon dried white oak bark powder
1 teaspoon flavoring herbs of your choice (Fennel
Peppermint, Spearmint, in powder form)
5 drops Essential Oil of Tea Tree

Yield: about 1 cup

Pour the Baking Soda (soda reduces the acid level in the mouth. High acid creates tooth decay) and Bentonite clay powder into a medium-size mixing bowl. Add all the dry ingredients, including the Myrrh powder,( which helps to prevent periodontal disease) to the Baking Soda/Clay mixture. Mix well with a wire whisk. Add the Tea Tree oil, again mixing well. Place a clean cover over the bowl, covering it completely. Let sit overnight. The next morning, mix well again . Package in an wide-mouthed jar. It will last indefinitely if you keep moisture out of the package.

To use: Wet your toothbrush, then sprinkle a small quantity of toothpaste powder onto your brush. Brush thoroughly and gently in an up and down motion. Rinse, Feel the natural clean!

And now for something completely different. . .