Thoughts are things. They can heal or harm. Beliefs mold your brain. This is not just a figurative metaphor for what happens. Your brain literally stiffens, slows and loses function in direct relationship to your thoughts, beliefs and attitudes about you and your place in the world. How each of us responds to our life -- to our perceptions -- has enormous implications for how we feel, how we age and the health of our brain.
       
The most powerful pharmacy in the world is right between your ears!   Other than eating breakfast regularly, and eating more fruits and vegetables, the one characteristic that is present in all healthy older people is resiliency. Resiliency is that hard-to-measure quality of adapting to change, shifting with changing tides rather than drowning, seeing the glass half full, or knowing how to turn lemons into lemonade. 

In recent years, human development has threatened or eliminated many species that were once prevalent in the landscape.  As our society continues to expand into previously unmaintained wild areas, increasing pressure is placed on native wildlife.  For this reason, there is no better time than the present for gardeners to recognize the important role they play in the future of land management and conservation.  

Gardeners, and the general public alike, need to begin to think of their backyards as living entities, made up of millions of interdependent parts.  Gardeners hoping to create real habitat that will help to restore critical pieces of our ecosystem need to plant the species that support all wildlife:  bees, flies, grasshoppers, bugs, butterflies, beetles, spiders and wasps.  While it is easy to overlook many of the smaller creepy crawlies, we must remind ourselves that in absence of these smaller creatures the complex ecosystem crumbles. 

The troubling story of genetically modified crops in the USA

You may not realize it, but genetically modified organism (GMO) foods could be here to stay.  Thanks to a supine, underfunded FDA and powerful corporate interests willing to spin the science to meet their own needs, GMO foods have made their way into countless food products.  The top GM crops are soybeans, corn and canola, found in thousands of processed foods.