friendsI've been round the mountain and back this last while. Kind of wearing, but I'm baaaack and if I do say so mah-self, feeling much the better. I'm in a very peaceful place readied for what's coming round the bend.
It's funny, but every summer's end I can go into a real slump in my spirit. The first golden leaf, enough to set me off in a quietened and sober way. But not this year.
Autumn has come and brings with it a sense of relief and refreshing. The winds and rains heighten my anticipatory mood, and leave me enlivened.
Even the thoughts of winter bring a calm and sense of mystery and magic. Ever walk out into a woods after a huge snow fall? The snow creaking beneath your boots; life cloaked in a quietening; stilled. The snow glistens even in moonlight, and a sense of awe and fantasy fills the moment.
Well, I don't know if we'll get snow here on southern Vancouver Island this year,and in 26 years of me being here, I've not missed snow but this is a thought that has been bringing a sense of relief and refreshing even youthful exhilaration to me and I embrace it.
I can't help but feel like something wonderful is coming my way. I'll keep you posted.
Now...tell me about you. Any changes good or bad? I'd really love to hear.
Later....just me, Linda
http://www.mountainoffire.org/prayerpoints.htm
Struggles and tribulations can bring about strength, power, enlightenment.
Have you ever heard that? Well I have to say don't knock it till you try it. Struggle comes to us all and it can make or break you dependent upon the way you walk it out. Nobody who continuously confesses...I'm sick. I'm dying. My life is over....I can't make it. I'm losing it. I'm hopeless. My life sucks. I get all the pits. Why can't I get ahead? ...all of a sudden experiences prosperity. Are you kidding me?...Think about it.
When have you ever seen anyone who speaks this way become successful and experience break-through? I don't think it happens.
You have to start seeing yourself victorious regardless of what circumstances about you look like. I encourage my kids to find out how God sees them and then come in agreeance with that truth and watch barriers crumble and doors open.
I am victorious. I am the apple of HIS eye. He causes me to triumph. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. He will never put more on my shoulders than I can bear...I can do it! I can do it! and my needs are supplied to do it! That's what you confess! Confess life, shake off death and get ready for your creative genius to take off. Oh yah, blessings can rain on you out of heaven, but they come in many forms. Be alert, Sleepyhead. It's not about laying around and watching problemos magically disappearing, though sometimes that can happen...but in your best interest you'll be exercising those flaccid muscles.
Might even find yourself doing some fancy footwork. Can you dig it? Can you handle it? Yes, Life is Good when you put yourself inline with the good things/blessings intended towards you and stop agreeing with destruction that would be happy to have it's way.
You've been redeemed! Now take up your bed....and WALK! You're going to start having a ball. Living is really good! 
“Black as the devil, hot as hell, pure as an angel, sweet as love.” That’s the recipe for coffee, according to the utterly French statesman Talleyrand (1754-1838).
Across the Channel the British took a more, well, British approach to coffee cookery: Seventeenth-century diarist Samuel Pepys wrote of Londoners larding their coffee with butter, mustard, oatmeal, and ale.
Today’s choices, though arguably more appetizing, are no less confounding: Automatic drip or French press? Ground or whole bean? Fiery or frosty? Regular or unleaded? Americano, cappuccino, espresso, macchiato, mocha, or latte?
An average joe just doesn’t cut it anymore.
But we are a blessed people....
Now there's "Healthy" Coffee! even Mocha, Tea or tonight for me, it's Shokolade!
visit: Linda's Healthy Coffee Break to hear more or even to get your own...
Brazil’s coffee empire
bloomed from a bouquet.
(Circa 1727 to 1800)
1727: Brazil’s government wants a cut of the coffee market; but first, they need an agent to smuggle seeds from a coffee country. Enter Lt. Col. Francisco de Melo Palheta, the James Bond of Beans.
Colonel Palheta is dispatched to French Guiana, ostensibly to mediate a border dispute. Eschewing the fortresslike coffee farms, suave Palheta chooses a path of less resistance—the governor’s wife. The plan pays off. At a state farewell dinner she presents him a sly token of affection: a bouquet spiked with seedlings.
From these scant shoots sprout the world’s greatest coffee empire. 
By 1800 Brazil’s monster harvests would turn coffee from an elite indulgence to an everyday elixir, a drink for the people.
Gabriel Mathieu de Clieu
shares his water ration.
(Circa 1720 to 1770)
On the return passage to Martinique, wrote de Clieu, a “basely jealous” passenger, “being unable to get this coffee plant away from me, tore off a branch.”
Then came the pirates who nearly captured the ship; then came a storm which nearly sank it. Finally, skies grew clear. Too clear. Water grew scarce and was rationed. De Clieu gave half of his allotment to his stricken seedling.
Under armed guard, the sprout grew strong in Martinique, yielding an extended family of approximately 18 million trees in 50 years or so. 
Its progeny would supply Latin America, where a dangerous liaison would help bring coffee to the masses...
Louis XIV cradles his coffee plant,
a gift from the Dutch.
(Circa 1714 to 1720)
Louis XIV received his Dutch treat around 1714—a coffee tree for Paris’s (map) Royal Botanical Garden, the Jardin des Plantes. Several years later a young naval officer, Gabriel Mathieu de Clieu, was in Paris on leave from Martinique, a French colony in the Caribbean. Imagining Martinique as a French Java, he requested clippings from his king’s tree. Permission denied.
Resolute, de Clieu led a moonlight raid of the Jardin des Plantes—over the wall, into the hothouse, out with a sprout.
Mission accomplished, de Clieu sailed for Martinique. 
He might have thought the hard part was over. He would have been wrong...
Temples mark the landscape
of Java, where the first
European-owned coffee farms
were founded by representatives
of Amsterdam (inset).
(1615 to 1700)
“The Turks (map) have a drink of black color....I will bring some with me...to the Italians” (map). Thus a merchant of Venice introduced Europe to coffee in 1615. But the end product didn’t amount to a hill of beans to many traders—they wanted the means of production. The race was on.
The Dutch (map) cleared the initial hurdle in 1616, spiriting a coffee plant into Europe (map) for the first time. Then in 1696 they founded the first European-owned coffee estate, on colonial Java, now part of Indonesia (map).
Business boomed and the Dutch sprinted ahead to adjacent islands. 
Confident beyond caution, Amsterdam began bestowing coffee trees on aristocrats around Europe...
Indian Baba Budan smuggles
beans on his belly.
(Circa 1000 to 1600)
Coffee as we know it kicked off in Arabia, where roasted beans were first brewed around A.D. 1000. By the 13th century Muslims were drinking coffee religiously. The “bean broth” drove dervishes into orbit, kept worshippers awake, and splashed over into secular life. And wherever Islam went, coffee went too: North Africa (map), the eastern Mediterranean, and India (map).
Arabia made export beans infertile by parching or boiling, and it is said that no coffee seed sprouted outside Africa or Arabia until the 1600s—until Baba Budan. As tradition has it, this Indian pilgrim-cum-smuggler left Mecca with fertile seeds strapped to his belly. 
Baba’s beans bore fruit and initiated an agricultural expansion that would soon reach Europe’s colonies...
Did an Ethiopian
goatherd discover coffee?
(Circa A.D. 800)
Goats will eat anything. Just ask Kaldi the legendary Ethiopian (map) goatherd. Kaldi, the story goes, noticed his herd dancing from one coffee shrub to another, grazing on the cherry-red berries containing the beans. He copped a few himself and was soon frolicking with his flock.
Witnessing Kaldi’s goatly gambol, a monk plucked berries for his brothers. That night they were uncannily alert to divine inspiration.
History tells us other Africans of the same era fueled up on protein-rich coffee-and-animal-fat balls—primitive PowerBars—and unwound with wine made from coffee-berry pulp. 
Coffee later crossed the Red Sea to Arabia, where things really got cooking...
Before Gano...I loved my coffee! The more it bit back at me the more I was satisfied^_^...The thing is....I would notice my skin and how it had no lustre, over the years becoming more dry l and well really, it wasn't' as bad as this description, but it sort of had a crispy, unhealthy look to it. Not wanting to dwell on it, after all, what can a girl do, I'm not getting any younger, right?
But the fact of this matter is, since I've been drinking the Gano Healthy Coffee, my skin was one of the first things to change.
The "crispyness" is gone. I look brighter and more refreshed. I am quite amazed and pleased. It is getting better too, as I drink more water.
I am so bad when it comes to drinking water but find, the coffee with it's 150 plus Antioxidants is cleansing me. I recognize I must flush these toxins out of my system. Water is so very important I see that and somehow seem to be better able to accommodate the need. Honestly, drinking water could practically be painful to me at times Ugh!
Funny...I recognize I am even more thirsty and now purposefully reach for my bottle of water. Can't hardly wait to get my new filtering water bottle...I'll be sure to let you know how that works out!
....just a note, I love this coffee! I think before bed I will have some Hot Cocoa, though...Good night now, it's been a good/GOD day! ...LindaACruse
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Eo SK, Kim YS, Lee CK, Han SS.
College of Pharmacy, Chungbuk National University, Cheongju, South Korea.
To investigate antiherpetic substances from Ganoderma lucidum, various protein bound polysaccharides, GLhw, GLhw-01, GLhw-02, GLhw-03, were isolated by activity-guided isolation from water soluble substances of the carpophores. These substances were examined for their antiviral activities against herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) and type 2 (HSV-2) by plaque reduction assay in vitro. Among them, the acidic protein bound polysaccharide, GLhw-02 of a brownish substance, exhibited the most potent antherpetic activity with 50% effective concentrations (EC50) of 300 approximately 520 microg/ml in Vero and HEp-2 cells, and its selectivity indices (SI) were more than 20. GLhw-02 was identified to consist mainly of polysaccharide (approximately 40.6%) and protein (approximately 7.80%) by anthrone test and Lowry-Folin test, and showed the usual molar ratio (C:H
= 1:2:1) of carbohydrates by elemental analysis. These results suggest that GLhw-02 possesses the possibility of being developed from a new antiherpetic agent. PMID: 10624876 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
Song YS, Kim SH, Sa JH, Jin C, Lim CJ, Park EH.
Bioanalysis and Biotransformation Research Center, Korea Institute of Science and Technology, PO Box 131, Seoul 130-650, South Korea.
Fresh fruit bodies of Ganoderma lucidum were extracted with 70% ethanol at room temperature. The extract (GL) showed significant anti-angiogenic activity, which was detected using a chick embryo chorioallantoic membrane assay. GL significantly inhibited LPS-induced NO production in RAW 264.7 macrophages. These results support the anti-tumor effect of Ganoderma lucidum.
Immunomodulatory and antimicrobial effects of some traditional chinese medicinal herbs: a review.
Tan BK, Vanitha J.
Department of Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine, National University of Singapore, 18 Medical Drive, Singapore 117597. phctankh@nus.edu.sg
The current practice of ingesting phytochemicals to support the immune system or to fight infections is based on centuries-old tradition. We review reports on seven Chinese herbs, (Aloe vera Mill. (Aloaceae), Angelica species (Umbelliferae), Astragalus membranaceus Bunge. (Leguminosae), Ganoderma lucidum (Fr.) Karst. (Ganodermataceae), Panax ginseng C.A Mey. (Araliaceae), Scutellaria species (Lamiaceae) and Zingiber officinale Rosc. (Zingiberaceae) with emphasis to their immunomodulatory and antimicrobial activities. While some of these herbaceous plants have a direct inhibitory effect on microbial organisms, we observe that each plant has at least one compound that selectively modulates cells of the immune system. The successful derivation of pure bioactive compounds from Ganoderma lucidum, ginseng and Zingiber officinale supports the traditional practice of using these plants to stimulate the immune system. As many modern drugs are often patterned after phytochemicals, studying the influence of each compound on immune cells as well as microbes can provide useful insights to the development of potentially useful new pharmacological agents.
Publication Types:
- Review
- Review, Tutorial
