Row, Row, your kayak merrily down the Sweet Gulf. . .Is that your adventure in Paradise? Where is Paradise? What is the price to pay for Paradise? Is Paradise here, there, or anywhere? Let’s read what I have experienced about what is Paradise.

Yes, Paradise is wherever you want it to be. Because life is but a dream. The creator of that dream is you. The Self of contentment creates any attitude toward your true Self that you wish to create. I, for one, have found Paradise in my corner of the world, Rincón de Osa. Once I had accepted the good of everything here—including even the bugs: voilá!. . . Paradise in Rincon.

Acknowledge that you have the power to manifest more than one Paradise. This alone is worthy of your attention. Just to create the feeling of inner peace with all the dreams available to you. Dreaming is a path to assist you in manifesting your made to fit Paradise(s). Remember the song ‘Row, Row, Row Your Boat’ from your childhood. It is a song of truth, and creating your attitude to move merrily along is having your Paradise in this life. Be my guest. . . Life Is Your Dream. Dream on. Namaste.

A. Solimar is the author of the book, The Dream.

Alex

This column is a cooperative effort between two residents of the Osa Peninsula. The theme is health, and how to live purely and simply while maximizing one’s potential and enjoyment of this great gift of life we share on Terra. Welcome.

My personal philosophy is that in order to enjoy life to its fullest one has to create and maintain the highest levels of personal health in all three aspects of our experience of this dimension: body, mind, and spirit. Feeding the body in a healthy and wholesome manner is, at least for me, a self-evident first step. I believe that the human being needs mental raw material as well. One needs to feed the mind, preferably with interesting, enlightening material sufficient to keep the intellectual mechanism well-greased and moving in a positive direction. Good books do the job for me, and an odd magazine or three when I can get them. Feeding the spirit? Well, my perspective is that in savoring life from day to day, challenging yourself emotionally, and delving within to contact that divine source of life energy within us, all serve to feed that innate human need for spiritual fulfillment.

This is, obviously, quite a challenging goal to strive for. I myself may only achieve all three levels of success some of the time, but I do succeed living at least some of it most of the time. I have only been truly sick once in over six years. I feel that if one’s sincere intention is to get to that place of all-around health (physical, mental/emotional, and spiritual), then success is only a matter of time. We offer this column to aid you on your path.

Marisol

To assist you in reaching a better understanding on how important it is to eat right it is helpful to understand the properties of what you are eating. I have made it a living ambition to know for my family and myself exactly what I am eating and how it contributes to my health. I also heal

with foods and herbs. My experience has educated me that foods and herbs outshine the medications prescribed by the medical and dental fields.

I will be contributing to this column the information that I have accumulated in the years and have put to practice. I pray that this information will serve you to a path of good health. Blessing to you.

Natural drinks are naturally great for you. Barley (cebada) drink, tea, or to eat as a cereal or in soups, has a cooling thermal nature, and both a sweet and salty flavor. Roasted barley can be ground to a powder and stirred into hot water as a hot drink, mixed with cold water and iced for a cold drink, or decocted as a tea in it’s whole berry form. Both the tea and drink relieve summer heat and fatigue, and act as digestive aid and coffee substitute. Barley can also be eaten as a cooked cereal or added to soup. The sole use of the barley is when the full potential of cooling will be felt. Enjoy.