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Living Well

Inpsire Your Spirit

By Joann Milivojevic

Dare to Dream

When was the last time you dared to dream? Not the in-your-sleep kind of dream but the aspiration kind of dream, such as a strong desire for a career shift, a new house or a better relationship with a loved one. Dreams are like carrots that dangle just out of reach. They’re good for us because they inspire us to move forward.

Make your dream more than a pie-in-the-sky wish by taking action. Take a class, find a mentor or create a collage that reflects your dream vision. For example, cut out words and images and glue them to a poster board. Let the artistic spirit flow freely as you bring your vision into a pictorial reality.

Then look for synchronicity in the days ahead. Perhaps you’ll suddenly see a book related to your dream or see a seminar about your subject of interest. It’s a little like shopping for a car. Once you decide upon the make and model, you see them everywhere. Creating a dream collage helps you see your dream more clearly.

But what if you’re stuck and don’t even know what your dream is? In her groundbreaking book on creativity called The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron includes an exercise on unearthing your dreams. Below is an excerpt of the exercise. The key to this exercise is speed. Jot down your answers quickly—they will point you in the direction of your dream:

  1. List five hobbies that sound fun.
  2. List five classes that sound fun.
  3. List five things you used to enjoy doing.
  4. List five silly things you would like to try once.

Seeing Red

'Tis the season for all things green and red, including the pomegranate, a fruit that hails from Persia. This gorgeous ruby-colored beauty has long played a starring role in art, literature and in ancient Greek medical texts. Today, science tells us what ancient medical practitioners have long known—pomegranates are very good for health.

The fruit is jam-packed with polyphenol antioxidants, which guard the body against free radicals, molecules that destroy healthy cells. Research has shown that pomegranate juice has higher levels of antioxidants than red wine and green tea. In a 2007 issue of Cancer Research, researchers led by Hasan Mukhtar, PhD—coleader of the Cancer Chemoprevention Program of the University of Wisconsin Paul P. Carbone Comprehensive Cancer Center—demonstrated that drinking pomegranate fruit extract helps slow the growth of lung cancer in mice.

"Pomegranate fruit continues to show great promise,” says Mukhtar, professor of dermatology at the School of Medicine and Public Health and a member of the Carbone Cancer Center. “We have earlier shown that pomegranate fruit contains very powerful skin and prostate cancer-fighting agents. These recent findings expand the possible health benefits of the fruit to the leading cause of cancer death in the country and worldwide: lung cancer."

During the fall and winter, the fruit appears in the produce section. The seeds (called arils) can be tossed into salads, rice dishes, smoothies or simply enjoyed fresh. Because the juice easily stains, the best way to peel this fruit is under water. Just submerge the pomegranate in a bowl of water placed in the sink, cut it into quarters, pull back the peel and strip away the paper-thin membrane. The seeds will fall to the bottom.

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