In Review, The Blue Zones: Secrets for Living Longer — #BookTube #BlueZones #Intersectional #amreading

I’m posting a of The Blue Zones: Secrets for Living Longer (Lessons From the Healthiest Places on Earth) written by Dan Buettner and published by National Geographic. You can view the review below or read it below that. I hope you enjoy it.

I first connected with the Blue Zones during the 2020 pandemic when I saw a few videos highlighting the Blue Zones featured on YouTube. The Blue Zones are areas of the world – usually isolated mountainous regions – where people live the longest.

I was excited when I learned that Dan Buettner, the man who identified the Blue Zones, was coming out with a book titled The Blue Zones: Secrets for Living Longer (Lessons From the Healthiest Places on Earth). I had watched Buettner’s Netflix special “Live to 100—Secrets of the Blue Zones” — when it came out last year.

People who live in the Blue Zones are traditional people, and my sense is that not everyone can live there. For example, I didn’t see any lesbians in the Netflix special or the book. However, there are many things we can learn from people who live in the Blue Zones.

For starters, people living in the Blue Zones eat a mostly plant-based diet. Most live in towns in hilly regions and spend a lot of time walking up and down those hills to see friends, and to go to cafes and churches. Being sociable is a big part of living longer. Buettner writes that genes account for twenty-five percent of how long we live, and the rest is lifestyle — how we eat and move.

This is not new for those who have followed the growing information associated with healthy plant-based diets. However, it is fascinating to me that entire cultures live so differently from the rest of the world and particularly from the culture in the United States which has aptly been described as a “toxic-food culture.” Interesting is that the poorest people in the Blue Zones, those who must grow their own vegetables, are also the healthiest, the happiest, and those who live the longest.

I found all the stories interesting but was particularly moved by the story about the people who live in the Blue Zone on the island of Okinawa in Japan. At each meal, the people in the Okinawa Blue Zone consciously “reduced calories in a way that delayed the aging process.”

I am not normally a judgmental person — at least I try not to be, but when I read that Okinawa is a fading Blue Zone because of an United States military base which has moved nearby and that has attracted fast-food establishments and other chain restaurants that promote the Standard American Diet (SAD), I was angered and saddened.

As Buettner writes: “Their new diet turned out to be toxic. Younger Okinawans now die from heart disease at a rate higher than most other Japanese do. The incidence of low birth-rate is 20 percent greater than the rest of the country. And Okinawan men under 55 have the distinction of being the most obese in Japan.

“The truth is, it’s probably too late for this blue zone. When Okinawa’s oldest generation is gone, the phenomenon of long life here will likely vanish with it. Which makes it even more urgent that we capture their recipe for successful aging while we can.”

The Blue Zones–Secrets for Living Longer (Lessons From the Healthiest Places on Earth) written by Dan Buettner, and published by National Geographic is a good read, a beautiful and well-done book with gripping photographs. It is a good reminder of how big the world is and how much we have to learn.

 This is Janet Mason with reviews for Book Tube and Spotify.

For more information on my most recent novel Loving Artemis, an endearing tale of revolution, love, and marriage, click here:

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THEY, a biblical tale of secret genders — excerpt nominated for a #Pushcart — #amreading #LGBTQ

Since the Biblical season is on us and everybody is holy, I am re-posting a published excerpt of my novel, THEY, a biblical tale of secret genders published by Adelaide Books (New York/ Lisbon). (For more information about the book — click here.)

This piece was first published in aaduna and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

The Mother  

(sometime early in the first century)

In the beginning was the Mother.

In the womb, Tamar took mental notes. The heavens trembled — at least it felt like the heavens. Maybe it was just gas. The Mother shifted. At first, it was too dark to see. But Tamar could feel. At first it felt like chaos — like everything was unconnected. But then she felt something holding her. A curved wall. She was leaning into it. It was soft and warm. She felt her backbone curve behind her. She was half of a circle. Was she floating? There was a chord attached to her belly. She relaxed once she realized that she wouldn’t float away.

There were appendages coming out from her shoulders. She looked down below the chord. On the lower part of her body there was a small bump and on either side of that were two more appendages. There was liquid all around her. She felt warm and safe. She didn’t have to worry yet about breathing.

Whoosh. She flinched. Slosh. Gurgles whizzed by. There was an abbreviated bubbling. After it repeated three times, she identified the sound as a hiccup. After a few moments, there was silence. Then there was a contented hum coming from the distance. Tamar knew it was the Mother, and it calmed her.

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The darkness lifted. She saw a distant light glowing through the pink barrier. She looked down and noticed tiny extremities with red lines moving through them. They were attached to the ends of two appendages, on each side of her. She found that she could move them, as if she were trying to grasp something. She knew that these movements would come in handy later. The light went out. Darkness. Tamar felt herself in her body.

She was perfect.

When she woke again, she blinked for the first time. It felt good so she did it again. The pinkish yellow glow came back. She clenched and unclenched her fingers. She rubbed the short one across the tips of several of the others, and felt a roughness. She felt a nourishment rushing from the chord through her body. And it was good. She went back to sleep for a long while.

When she woke, she stretched and yawned. She saw a pinkish yellow glow. It was faint and came from the other side. She looked toward the light and saw the sack next to her. There was someone inside who looked like her. It even had a light glowing around its edges — just like she did — down its extremities and around its fingers and toes. She remembered now that she had entered one body of two. Her twin was beside her. There was a large, round dome attached to a small body like hers. The big round dome faced her. The eyes looked at her. One blinked and the other stayed open. The two corners of the lips went up. Somehow she knew that this was a smile. Her twin was welcoming her. She wanted to welcome him back, but something stopped her. She didn’t know who her twin was. Was her twin part of her? She wasn’t sure she wanted to be part of someone else. She definitely didn’t want to share her Mother.

There were appendages on both sides of his body. There were five fingers attached to the end of each appendage. The fingers clenched and unclenched. They seemed to wave at her. Tamar thought about waving back, but she didn’t. She wasn’t sure if the thing next to her in the translucent sack could see her. So she pretended that she didn’t see it. Then she looked down and saw something protruding. At first she thought that she was seeing a shadow. She moved her head slightly. The shadow was still there. She looked down at her own body and saw that she also had a third appendage on the lower part of her body. It was much shorter than the two other limbs. She clenched and unclenched her fingers. They were all there — five on each side, including the shorter ones at the ends. None of them had fallen off. She looked down again. Somehow she knew that this protrusion made her a boy and knowing this made her angry.

She knew her name was Tamar, but she had forgotten where it came from. She knew that Tamar was a girl’s name, and that she was a girl. She had a vague memory in her cells that she had come from a single egg, fertilized by a trail of light that had come just for her. And she remembered that another egg, fertilized with its own stream of light, was next to her and that the two eggs had merged. They crossed over and into each other, exchanging some vital information. Tamar’s egg knew that it was female. But it absorbed a sequence of information that told it that its genetic material that it would be male and female. The secret language of the cells said that each of the eggs would be XX and XY.

The thing next to her had a longer protrusion than her. She took comfort in that. Perhaps this meant that she was really a girl after all. But the thing next to her — gradually, she came to think of him as her twin — would most likely be lording his superiority over her forever.

On the sides of the protrusion were two lower appendages. She found that she could use her mind to stretch them. And once she stretched them, she realized that these were her legs and that her feet were attached to the ends of them. She kicked at the inside of the pink cushion that surrounded her.

“Ow,” said a woman’s voice. It was the voice of the Mother. Tamar knew that she had to get the Mother’s attention first. She kicked again.

This time she felt a gentle hand push down on the other side of the pink cushion. Her twin nudged the Mother back.

“What are you trying to tell me, my son?” asked Mother.

I’m a girl — a girl just like you Mother, Tamar tried to say. But speech eluded her. She had yet to utter her first cry. But she had to get Mothers attention —

to read the entire piece in aadduna, click here

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Finding the Light–#UU #amreading #Hanukkah

I am reposting this talk that I gave to mark the occasion of Hanukkah. The talk was a Unitarian Universalist (UU) service that was called “Ringing in the Light.”

I talked about my childhood memories of being touched by Hanukkah and my experiences in celebrating the Winter Solstice and with the Gnostic Gospels. You can see my words below on the YouTube video or read the reflection below that.

Janet Mason on Light – YouTubeAuthor Janet Mason talks about finding the light through a child memory of a Hanukkah play, celebrating the solstice, and the Gnostic Gospels in a Unitarian Universalist context.www.youtube.com

As far back as I can remember, the light beckoned.

The sun was a ball of fire in the sky.  The light changed into vibrant colors in the morning and the evening.  It filtered through the branches of trees.  The sunlight had, in fact, shined down and helped to form the trees.  So the light was in the trees (along with the rain and the earth).

Even when it was cloudy, I knew the sun was there. Sometimes I could see the ball of sun outlined behind the gray clouds.

The first time I remember being drawn to the light in a religious context was when I was in elementary school watching a play about Hanukkah.

Despite its nearness to Christmas on the calendar, Hanukkah is one of the lesser holidays in Judaism. Hanukkah, also called The Festival of Lights, began last Tuesday at sunset and ends this Wednesday, December, 20^th, at nightfall.

When I asked my partner what Hanukkah meant to her, she responded that it is a celebration of survival, hope and faith.

The holiday celebrates the victory of the Maccabees, detailed in the Hebrew Bible and the Talmud.

This victory of the Maccabees, in approximately 160 BCE –  BCE standing for Before The Common Era — resulted in the rededication of the Second Temple.  The Maccabees were a group of Jewish rebel warriors who took control of Judea.

According to the Talmud, the Temple was purified and the wicks of the menorah burned for eight days.

But there was only enough sacred oil for one day’s lighting. It was a miracle.

Hanukkah is observed by lighting the eight candles of the menorah at varying times and various ways.  This is done along with the recitation of prayers.  In addition to the eight candles in the menorah, there is a ninth called a shamash (a Hebrew word that means attendant). This ninth candle, the shamash, is in the center of the menorah.

It is all very complicated of course – the history and the ritual – but what I remember most is sitting in that darkened auditorium and being drawn to the pool of light around the candles on my elementary school stage.

I am not Jewish.  I say that I was raised secular – but that is putting it mildly.  My mother was, in fact, a bible-burning atheist.  Added to that, I was always cast as one of the shepherds in the school’s Christmas pageant since I was the tallest child in elementary school.

Also, I had Jewish neighbors – and as a future lesbian and book worm growing up in the sameness of a working class neighborhood — I may have responded to difference and had a realization that I was part of it.

Then I grew up, came out, thanked the Goddess for my secular upbringing, and celebrated the Winter Solstice with candles and music. This year, the Solstice falls on December 21st. The Winter Solstice (traditionally the shortest period of daylight and the longest night of the year)  is this coming Thursday in the Northern Hemisphere of planet Earth – which is where we are.

One of our friends who we celebrated the Solstice with is Julia Haines. Julia is a musician who has performed at Restoration.  She has a wonderful composition of Thunder Perfect Mind which she accompanies with her harp playing. You can find her on YouTube. Thunder Perfect Mind, of which I just read an excerpt, is one of the ancient texts of the Gnostic Gospels.

The Gnostic Gospels were discovered in the Egyptian town of Nag Hammadi in 1945.  Originally written in Coptic, these texts date back to ancient times and give us an alternative glimpse into the Gospels that are written in the New Testament. They are so important that they are banned in some conventional religions.  And in my book, that’s a good reason to read them.

Reading them led me to think of myself as a Gnostic – meaning one who has knowledge and who pursues knowledge – including mystical knowledge.  The Gnostic Gospels have provided me with inspiration for my writing, particularly in my novel THEY, a biblical tale of secret genders, soon to be published by Adelaide Books. And they also inspire me in the novel I am currently writing — titled The Unicorn, The Mystery.

I am inspired by the Gnostic Gospels in part because they let in the light.  In particular, they let in the light of the feminine.

As Julia says in her rendition of Thunder:

am godless

I am Goddess

So how does finding the light factor into my experience of Unitarian Universalism? Later in life, after fifty, I found a religion that fit my values.  I found a religion wide enough – and I might add, secure enough – to embrace nonconformity.

In finding a congregation that is diverse in many ways – including religious diversity – I have found a deeper sense of myself.

And in that self, I recognize that the darkness is as least as necessary and as important as the light.

As a creative writer, I spend much of my time in the gray-matter of imagination.

It is in that darkness where I find the light.

Namaste

For more information on my most recent novel Loving Artemis, an endearing tale of revolution, love, and marriage, click here:

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Reinventing Tradition — #govegan #Thanksgiving #ThanksLiving #vegandoxology #amreading

As Thanksgiving approaches, I want to emphasize the importance of reinventing tradition. This particular tradition is fraught with horrible origins. To read my review of Joy Harjo’s memoir, Poet Warrior, click here.

For the animals, for the planet and for ourselves, my partner and I are planning to go to a local vegan Thanks Living potluck gathering on Thursday.

Barbara who uses the pen name Foxx has written the following little song called

A Vegan Doxology

Praise Mother Earth from whom all blessings flow

Bless the farmers and gardeners and the food they grow

Thanks for corn and squash and beans and oats

Save the turkeys and cows and holy goats

Blessed Be

.

For more information on my most recent novel Loving Artemis, an endearing tale of revolution, love, and marriage, click here:

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Mental Health!? — What’s it all about? #amreading #MentalHealthAwareness

As part of a larger annual Unitarian Universalist service on Rosh Hashanah and mental health, I talked about how I have been taking care of my mental health lately. The talk is on YouTube and below the video is the text.

Lately, I’ve been consciously taking care of my mental health. Perhaps this is because we are increasingly living in a toxic society—so it seems to me.

Perhaps it is because I am a writer and the flip side of having the muse come to me and insisting that I write a novel in a few months, leaves a huge swirling void inside of me, where negative emotions can and do linger.

This past summer was a particularly good one (for my writing) and a bad one for me personally as the result of going so much deeper in my work was that I felt myself to be physically depleted when I was done, which was an unusual feeling for me.  I felt empty, numb, and uncharacteristically angry. The lingering effects were that I felt myself being a bit depressed or more than a bit, also unusual for me. At this point, I felt myself as being outside of my life. I felt disconnected.

Fortunately, I was able to get back on track through my routine of self-care which includes a daily walk for at least twenty minutes, avoiding all animal products, and doing a regular yoga practice. Perhaps it was my new little cat Peanut who brought me back to myself. For who can stay depressed with a morning routine of a rapidly growing young adult cat pouncing onto your chest and licking your face?

In my mid-sixties, I have come to the conclusion that I must consciously work on myself not only to survive but to thrive. All of this caring for my physical body also helps my mental health because everything is connected. After a medical scare about four years ago, I am still thankful and relieved to be healthy and to be here.

The I Am affirmations are similar to Buddhist affirmations, such as “May I be peaceful.” Except that by using the words “I Am,” the speaker and the hearer are placing themselves in the present and using positive thoughts to create what is already in them.

Now, thanks to the I Am affirmations I have found on YouTube, I have also been able to consciously raise my vibration. I can feel myself getting lighter and happier as I listen to the words.

It is thought that the I Am philosophy dates back to teachings described in sacred texts.  I learned that the first recorded use of the term “affirmation” was in 1843 by the philosopher, writer, and Unitarian minister Ralph Waldo Emerson. Emerson wrote: “Every man is an affirmation of himself.”

In some of the I Am affirmations that I listen to, the announcer says, “I am patience; I am tolerance; I am good enough; I am pure love.”

I listen to the meditations some mornings; sometimes when I am doing my yoga practice; and several times I found I am meditations that lasted all night long. The words entered my subconscious and came back to me when I needed them.

Another meditation focuses on gratitude and says, “I am grateful for the air in my lungs.”

Would you all say that with me now?

“I am grateful for the air in my lungs” …

Thank you!

This is a good reminder that I am indeed grateful for the air in my lungs.

On this Jewish New Year – as always – I am also grateful to be here with you.

–Namaste–

For more information on my most recent novel Loving Artemis, an endearing tale of revolution, love, and marriage, click here:

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