Monthly Archives: August 2017

3 Birthday Feathers for Making Wishes

…he said: ‘Now you have seen me, you shall see me no more, unless you are willing to serve seven years and a day for me, so that I may become a man once more.’ Then he told her to take three feathers from under his side, and whatever she wished through them would come to pass. Then he left her at a great house to be laundry-maid for seven years and a day.

“Three Feathers,” More English Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs, 1894

In this tale, a woman is not allowed to see what her own husband looks like. With untamed curiosity, one night she lights a candle so she can see him. Jacobs writes, “He was handsome enough to make all the women of the world fall in love with him. But scarcely had she seen him when he began to change into a bird.”

The bird-man exiles his wife to seven years and a day as a laundress so he can regain his human form; yet he also gives her three feathers for making wishes. Through the feathers she really doesn’t do seven years of labor. The feathers do the work for her.

Like the wife and her husband, I finally looked upon the truth about my son Brennan; soon thereafter he flew away into the unseen realm.

My friend Kay taught me to watch for signs of his continuing presence in my life.

A week ago would have been his 22nd birthday. Like the bird-man, he sent me three feathers to let me know he’s nearby, working his magic. And like the wife, I have labor to perform, writing a book about grieving. It is a labor of love.

The first feather presented itself a few days before his birthday at Lake Isabella in Loveland, Ohio, while I walked and talked about him with my friend Laura. The large turkey vulture feather stuck straight up in the grass next to the road. Turkey vultures are symbols of devoted motherhood. Their plumage would probably make good quills for writing. Perhaps Brennan has sent me a Quick-quotes Quill from Harry Potter.

The second feather floated down out of the clear blue sky, landing right in front of me on the day before his birthday. I knew then that feathers would be the sign of his presence for this birthday.

On his birthday, I discovered the third feather–caught somehow on a gossamer thread hanging from the shelf above my laundry sink.

I believe my son, invisible to me now, left me three birthday feathers for making wishes as I labor on his book. And there will be three parts to his book–perhaps a feather for making wishes and receiving inspiration from my son as I write on each section.

It was a beautiful gift to me on his birthday.

Thriver Soup Ingredient:

Signs from our deceased loved ones can be subtle. Keep an open mind and heart and watch for them. My friend Kathy, whose sister Karen passed a year ago, writes, “It’s also interesting to me how often animals appear in some significant way when people move on… when Mother died, we heard a Mourning Dove…at 1:30am, a rather unusual time for bird song.

“As we walked to the door to enter the house to say Goodbye to Karen (after all the police/medical investigations were done – standard procedure for an “unattended death”), someone happened to glance to the left and there in the field was a doe, looking right at us. She stood for the longest time, unafraid, then bounded away into the cedars looking so graceful and free. ”

What signs have you received from your deceased loved one?

Source:

http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/meft/meft08.htm

Most Recent Reviews

New reviews have appeared on amazon.com, bringing the total to 26. Thank you to all who have already reviewed Thriver Soup.

I have heard from a publicity specialist that when amazon receives 100 reviews, then Thriver Soup will receive more attention.

Would you please consider writing a review? I would greatly appreciate it.

Most recent reviews:

5.0 out of 5 stars | Great book for someone going through their cancer treatments journey.

By Audrey Ahlrichson August 12, 2017

Great book for someone going through their cancer treatments journey who is battling all the different “side effects.” Thriver Soup is a wonderful tool to have in the fighter’s toolbox! Grateful I found Heidi and this book.

5.0 out of 5 stars | Stimulating, Informative and potentially life changing

By Amazon Customer on August 10, 2017

I found the sections entitled: Little Sprouts (page 132), Magic of Mushrooms (page 133), and Micro-greens (page 135) to be informative and helpful in the process of detoxing my body-helping me digest food; as well as giving me energy to get things accomplished without over stimulating my brain and nervous system like sugar and caffeine have done, although the caffeine seems to help with digestion as well. The book seems to have an immense amount of information for general health and well being and it’s not just for cancer patients.

5.0 out of 5 stars | Healing the body, mind and spirit

By RBW on August 9, 2017

There are lots of books on healing, but few that address so many aspects of it in a practical and do-able way. Heidi navigated the complicated maze of conventional cancer treatments and complementary therapies, but her story is also about searching for, and finding, her authentic self. In this book, she shares the wisdom gained along the way, with a healthy dose of humor and grace.

5.0 out of 5 stars… either in our own bodies or those of our loved ones. Like many of life’s crisis

By M Lewandoski on August 15, 2017

Many of us will face the crisis of cancer – either in our own bodies or those of our loved ones. Like many of life’s crisis, you should assemble a variety of tools to deal with this crisis when it hits. Thriver Soup by Heidi Bright will be a central tool in that arsenal. It is an informative and helpful book, full of practical and spiritual advice on the multifaceted experience that is cancer and cancer survival.

 

Your Votes Requested for SXSW

My talk, “Subduing Cancer: The ABCs of Healing,” is on the lineup for possible presentation at the huge SXSW conference in Austin, Texas, next March. Presentations are selected partially on votes, which make up 30% of the score. It is a terrific opportunity to share genuine hope and multiple options with a new group of people.

To help make this opportunity possible, please vote for the presentation to be included. When you vote for “Subduing Cancer: The ABCs of Healing,” the box will turn blue. Deadline is Aug. 24. Thank you!
http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/78016

Healthy Veggies for that Last-minute Summer Trip

Recall that you said, “O Moses, we can no longer tolerate one kind of food. Call upon your Lord to produce for us such earthly crops as beans, cucumbers, garlic, lentils, and onions.”

Sura 2:61, Qur’an

Who would want manna, manna, and more manna, when the earth produces so many delicious vegetables? I’d certainly be complaining if I went 40 years without beans, cucumbers, garlic, lentils, and onions. I frequently eat them at home, but not when traveling.

Yet in a way I had fallen into a narrow focus for my go-to veggies when away from home. I am tired of carrot and celery sticks. Are you tired of them, too?

When I packed for my summer flight to Norway, I didn’t want those boring old stand-bys. I wanted finger-food veggies that tasted good on their own and could withstand travel.

So I went to the grocery store and stalked the produce section for delicious veggies. I surprised myself and bought a cucumber, a red bell pepper, and sugar snap and snow peas. At home, the cucumber and pepper were quickly sliced into strips and placed in little snack baggies with a piece of paper towel. The peas were already clothed in their own little natural packages. During my 23-hour trip I was delighted to eat these crunchy, healthy snacks.

Another option, if you can find them fresh, is jicama. This crunchy root has a sweet, nutty flavor. Peeled, cut into strips, and placed in a snack bag, they can make a great addition.

While on my trip without my pocket knife, I continued eating fresh, raw peas as a snack or part of a packed meal. They were readily available in grocery stores. Once I even found baby cukes in a cup. They didn’t last long in my hands. And I hadn’t even called upon the Spirit for them.

Thriver Soup Ingredient

Perhaps plan a quick trip to the grocery store for fun veggies to munch on during your next trip.  You can look up their nutritional status here.

What are your favorite traveling veggies?

How Nutritious are Your Eggs?

  1. You should not wantonly climb in trees to look for nests and destroy eggs. 98. You should not use cages to trap birds and [other] animals.

One Hundred and Eighty Precepts

These Daoist sayings are hard. I can understand not wantonly destroying eggs, but not using cages to trap birds and other animals? We wouldn’t have farms without them. Some would argue that would be a good practice, but for people who believe they need eggs and meat, the way to follow this with limited land resources would be to pasture-raise our farm animals. This is expensive and uses a lot of land, raising the price of eggs and meat.

I used to buy my eggs from a discount store at a discount price. The poor hens, most likely trapped in battery cages, probably never saw sunlight or moved outside of their tiny cells. (In a 2014 report, 95% of U.S. eggs came from hens trapped in battery cages.) What a miserable existence. I found the shells overly easy to crack open. They reminded me of the egg breakage I’d read about among wild birds. These fowl are experiencing losses in breeding success due to contamination by post-1945 “residues of synthetic organic chemicals used as pesticides and in industry.”

As I learned, I moved to slightly costlier eggs.

One day my son cut his finger and bled profusely. I remembered reading that eggshell membranes can be used to temporarily stop excessive bleeding. I grabbed an egg and struggled to get a little bit of the membrane out of the bottom of the shell. I got only a small crumpled piece out, and put it on his little cut.

The cut immediately stopped bleeding. We were both stunned.

I then looked up more information on those membranes. They can be used to

  • treat wounds to prevent scar tissue;
  • reduce the effects of osteoarthritis;
  • improve health of skin, hair, and nails.

That was the end of cheap eggs for me. I began buying my eggs from local farmers, and when they weren’t available, got organic eggs from the supermarket. I immediately noticed a difference when cracking the eggs—the shells were tougher to break open.

But how to separate the membrane from the shell? I tried a few methods, none of which worked very well. The membranes were slick, tore easily, and took forever to separate from the shells.

Okay, so maybe the problem, again, was with the eggs themselves. So I moved to the most expensive eggs—organic, free-range, certified humane (raised and handled), and no synthetic pesticides, hormones, or antibiotics.

Viola! The membrane, tough and gauzy, pulled right off in large pieces. So easy! And to me it meant the membrane must be full of nutrients, especially collagen. I wanted those nutrients.

 

[Watch the 1-minute video here.]

I clean the membranes and drop them into my Vitamix to blend with greens for my smoothies.

To me, it’s worth the extra expense to get high-quality eggs, not only because I am prone to osteoarthritis, but also because as a survivor of highly aggressive end-stage sarcoma, nutrition is extremely important to me. I want to maintain my cancer remission! Healthy eating can only help, in my opinion.

Plus I’d rather get the membrane from eggs I cracked, so I know the source, than something that has been put through a chemical or other process, and then who knows the quality of the membrane anyway. Probably not from the healthiest eggs.

And another benefit. I clean and dehydrate the shells, crush them with a mortar and pestle, then add lemon or lime juice and have my own calcium supplement.

I am happy to follow the Daoist precept to avoid at least the battery cages and go with free-range, organically fed, humanely treated hens. Happy hens make good eggs, which please me.

Thriver Soup Ingredient:

For the healthiest eggs, look for free-range or pasture-raised organic eggs that are not treated with hormones or antibiotics.

Sources:

One Hundred and Eighty Precepts, http://fore.yale.edu/religion/daoism/texts/

“An estimated 95% of all eggs in the United States are produced in conventional cage systems, sometimes called battery cages.… According to UEP, conventional cage systems typically provide each laying hen an average of 67 square inches of floor space. In some egg operations, hens have less space.” https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/47ce/d140eac346b2b8d59781291411dd60148bfe.pdf

Contamination, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/273074182_Changes_Attributable_to_Pesticides_in_Egg_Breakage_Frequency_and_Eggshell_Thickness_in_Some_British_Birds

What’s in eggshell membrane: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggshell_membrane, http://eggmem.org/en/about/

Treating wounds: http://eggmem.org/en/about/page1.php

Treating arthritis: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2697588/

Improving health of skin, hair, and nails: http://eggmem.org/en/about/page3.php